Rescuers pulled out two bodies from the Tasman Sea and said missing British Olympic yachtsman Glyn Charles was now officially counted among the dead though his body has not been found.

Two other sailors were confirmed dead yesterday.

The deaths dulled what should have been a champagne end to the race when US Computer executive Larry Ellison skippered his Maxi Sayonara into the Hobart dock several hours ahead of defending champion Brindabella.

The last missing yachtsman was from the veteran cutter Winston Churchill. The bodies found earlier today were also believed to be of sailors from that yacht.

``We have not found the third person we're looking for,'' Australian maritime safety authority spokesman Brian Hill told Reuters.

``And with every hour that goes past, it becomes harder and harder.''

Hill said a possiblesighting of a third body earlier today turned out to be false.

Rescue operations were scaled back today, with some eight aircraft scouring an area of about 225 square nautical miles.

As many as 38 aircraft were involved at the height of the rescue efforts, in which helicopters plucked some 60 sailors from yachts and swirling seas.

The royal Australian navy frigate Hmas Newcastle also pulled out of the search and was on its way to Sydney with two injured sailors it rescued from solo globe challenger today.

The two yachtsmen confirmed dead yesterday were from the 12 metre Australian yacht business Post Naiad. They died when their yacht lost its mast and rolled after a nine metre wave smashed into it on Sunday.

The bodies recovered today were believed to be those of two of three yachtsmen from the Winston Churchill who were swept off a life raft yesterday, a day after huge storms devastated the 115-yacht fleet.

The toll was the worst ever for the Sydney-Hobart yacht race, long known as `Hell onHighwater'. Only one sailor had perished since the race started in 1945.

The toll was also the worst in an ocean race since 17 people died in a storm during the 1979 Fastnet event in Britain.

The US Maxi yacht Sayonara, owned and skippered by Ellison and with media Tycoon Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan onboard, won the 630-nautical race today.

Ellison, chief executive of software giant oracle corp, also won the race in 1995.

Survivors tell tales of ocean hell

Their eyes are blank and their faces grim. Some are bruised and battered, bones broken, faces blistered red by windburn or covered with dried blood.

These were the images which emerged today of the dozens of survivors of the disastrous Sydney-Hobart yacht race which killed five sailors and left one yachtsman still missing at sea.

The survivors, some captured on film by their fellow crewmen as they waited desperately to be rescued from a killer sea, have seen hell and it is something they would rather forget.

``I will go sailing againbut not for a little while,'' said Roger Barnett, plucked from sea after his yacht Midnight Special was catapulted 360 degrees by a giant wave.

Barnett's first Sydney-Hobart turned into a nightmare on Sunday night when a black sea reared up, powered by deafening 70-plus knot gales, and smashed the race's 115-boat fleet off Australia's southeast coast.

But Barnett's tale of survival, like many emerging today, was not simply a matter of sheer luck, but a testament to man's tenacity to cling to life.

``There was a terrible crash as that wave hit, it was a huge size,'' said Barnett, adding the rogue wave ripped off the mast, shredded the rigging and flung crewmen against the yacht's hull.