Mercenaria for the win – and most than three million bucks

Team Mercenaria held onto a five-day, start-to-finish lead to capture the overall title at the 64th annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament.

With most boats heading to port this afternoon, Big Rock officials put the official trophy stamp on the board since no big blues are heading to the scales.

The 6-day event featured 266 teams and a total prize payout of $5.9 million.

Mercenaria – a 72-foot Viking home ported in Cape Charles and fishing out of Rudee Inlet – weighed in a 572.6-pound marlin on Monday and dealt all week with the anxiety of holding on. Matthew Brown was the angler, bringing the fish to the boat in a remarkable 19 minutes.

Nerves undoubtedly were high today when the Weldor’s Ark, captained by Dale Britt and one of the 139 teams fishing today, reported that it had hooked up with a big fish. But upon getting the blue to the boat, Britt and his crew said it was possibly 500 pounds, but figured it wouldn’t make the cut and released it.

That assured Capt. Neil Sykes, Brown and the rest of the crew approximately $3.4 million in prize money – a billfish tournament, single-team payout record.

The ride in “has been kind of quiet,” said Sykes and he idled the vessel to its dock. “We’ll get back to the docks, tie up and take it in for a while.

“Then we’ll get excited.”

Sykes said he was “100 percent surprised” that his team’s fish held up for the win.