Harbour yesterday, but rather than bringing welcome, steady breezes, her offerings were meddlesome showers and fluky winds that served to befuddle and torment the unseeded skippers.

And, while the skies typically cleared towards the conclusion of the first day of qualifying, the situation as to who would make it through to the championship round remained murky.

The morning session saw New Zealand's Chris Dickson, Murray Jones and Kelvin Harrap, along with Aussie James Spithill emerge at the top of Group One, achieving 2-1 records.

Meanwhile, the afternoon races were highlighted by the performances of 22-year-old prodigy Dalton Bergan, fellow American Andrew Horton, and Jes Gram-Hansen of Denmark, all of whom ended 3-1.

However, not nearly faring so well in Group Two was Bermuda's Glenn Astwood, who ended 1-3, his sole victory coming against Larson during his first outing.

"Our first three races were close, we got blown away in the last race, but we just never felt comfortable in the second boat,'' said Astwood, who had Peter Watt, David Juleff and Roger Mello as crew. "Tomorrow (today) I think we need more wind than we had this afternoon and just try to get off the starting line clean.

"We'll just go for the kill.'' In a similar position in Group One is fellow Bermudian Adam Barboza (1-2), who enters today requiring at least three wins if he is to stand any chance of advancing.

"I thought we did well today, we were in every race, and we were competitive,'' said Barboza, who beat Spithill, but lost to Mohr and Jones.

"These guys, if you look at them, on any other year they would be ranked skippers, so the win we got today we consider it to be one where we beat one of the best guys in the world.

"We have four races tomorrow and it'll be difficult. There's five people in our group with two-and-one records, so it's going to be a little hard, but if we can win three we stand a chance.'' Definitely in the reckoning is the ever dangerous Dickson, back at the Gold Cup after a lengthy absence.

"Two out of three, we're happy ... obviously we'd like to be three out of three, but there's some pretty tough racing out there, with some tough competitors,'' said Dickson. "Really we just want to make sure we're in the top half at the end of eight races and get through to the next round.

"So we've got four races to go and we probably need -- or should be thinking about winning -- three out of the four to make sure we go through.''