Sailing: Collision fails to break rule of Law

COLLISION DAMAGE was keeping the umpires busy as the quarter-finalists in the 50th Bermuda Gold Cup took to the water in Hamilton yesterday.

Britain's Chris Law had already lost his opening race to New Zealand's Murray Jones when he was involved in a skirmish on the first leg of their second race. He was penalised by the judges, but was still managed to hold Jones off. He then won the argument over his disqualification and lived to fight on at all square.

In their opening race, Peter Gilmour and John Cutler also collided, but, as the umpires similarly prepared to deliberate, they both agreed to retire from the race and Gilmour won the re-run.

Looking as though he would have no trouble progressing to today's semi- finals, Russell Coutts was leading his fellow Kiwi Gavin Brady, while Peter Holmberg of the US Virgin Islands was 1-1 against Germany's Markus Wieser.

The leader, Marc Thiercelin, has decided to dig south on the first leg of the Around Alone Race from Charleston to Cape Town in a bid to skirt a huge area of low wind high pressure in the southern Atlantic. As his lead was less than 20 miles with 2,300 still to go, this could open the door to fellow-French competitor Isabelle Autissier.