A formation of 2 groups of steady white lights moving fast and silently from W to E across the night sky 40 m SSW of TurksA formation of 2 groups of steady white lights moved fast and silently from west to east across the night sky. Viewed from a sailboat on transit from Puerto Rico to the Turks and Caicos islands, heading 315 magnetic, date 03/22/99, time 22:15 island time, position 20 44 26/71 26 00, about 40 NM SSW of the Turks islands. The left group of lights consisted of 5 steady white lights in close position, the right group consisted of 2 simular lights. The two groups traveled close together, keeping the same position to each other. The steady white lights were round, maybe the size of a baseball, with short tails trailing. There was absolutely no noise. The lights travelled across the sky at an elevation of about 40 degrees, from west or northwest to east or southeast, at a steady speed, taking about 20 seconds. The sky was clear, with a few tropical clouds.I was off watch and resting, when my mate called me up on deck, and we watched this phenomina together, looking over the right side of the boat. I wrote down the information about this observation right after, but did not report it earlier, due to not knowing this web site.I am an optical engineer, but have no explanation how lights like this can travel at this high speed, without any noise. These were not meteors, which I observed many times before.