championship, surging into the semifinals on the tails of a 3-0 demolition of American Kevin Mahaney in their quarter-final series yesterday.

A lack of wind in Hamilton Harbour early on forced the rescheduling of the day's races, but once under way there was no delaying Kiwi Coutts, who quickly put paid to any hopes Mahaney may have had of advancing to the final four.

Superb teamwork between Coutts' crew, comprising Simon Daubney, Larry Klein and Warwick Fleury, contributed mightily toward the triumph, although Daubney indicated that it was no simple win.

"There's no way it was as easy as the scoreline suggests,'' said Daubney, who handled duties on the foredeck. "In the first race we felt we were a little bit lucky. We were stranded with no wind about a minute away from the start and were lucky to get back. We got a puff that came from nowhere, which took us over the top of Kevin.

"In the second race we probably both had a little bit of luck, but we got the last shot. The third we beat him fair and square, but it was much closer than the scoreline suggests.

"I think that our tactician Larry Klein did a great job of looking up the track and choosing sides, electing not to cover at times where maybe it would have been safer to do that. But he just looked for the breeze and did a very good job, which was maybe the difference.'' Mahaney, meanwhile, was not downtrodden in defeat, instead concluding that he was beaten by the better man ... at least on this day.

The New England native did not have his regular crew for this event, however he made no excuses for the loss, although noting that he felt Coutts had fouled at the start of flight two.

Asked if he was disappointed at going out at this stage, Mahaney responded: "Not really, we showed pretty well. I think Russell has been sailing more than anybody else and that's really important.

"We met Russell last year in the finals of the World Match Racing Championships and he beat us there in a close one.

"We've had a lot of real close races and I think Russell's one of the best sailors in the world ... that's why he's ranked number one.'' The result set up a repeat of the September's World Match Racing Championship finals, as Coutts is due to face yet another American in the form of Ed Baird, whom Coutts defeated at the aforementioned regatta for his second straight world title.

Baird was forced to dig deep in his resources in order to reach this stage.

His opponent, Markus Wieser, proved more than a handful and it was only the German's lack of match racing experience that may have cost him a finals spot.

After splitting the first two races the German appeared in firm control heading on the final downwind leg to the finish only to make one fateful jibe, crossing in front of Baird, losing speed and allowing the latter to sneak ahead and nose out Wieser by a mere second.

Obviously stung by the defeat, Wieser was unable to mount much resistance in the fourth outing and Baird won handily.

Nevertheless, his task only gets tougher today as he tackles Coutts.

"Hopefully, we have a more intelligent day tomorrow (today), because we didn't feel like we were doing too many things correctly (Friday), but fortunately the guys on my boat are excellent and they kept me out of trouble long enough to win,'' said Baird. "We had really close races with him and it's going to be that way tomorrow. We just have to have a good day ... and if he has any mistakes, he'll be behind us.'' Joining Coutts and Baird in the semifinals were Rod Davis, a 3-1 victor over Roy Heiner of Holland and Peter Gilmour, who bested 1991 winner Eddie Warden-Owen 3-1, as action went according to form with the top four seeds all advancing.

The semifinals start today at 9 a.m.

HOIST THAT KITE -- Omega Gold Cup skipper Peter Gilmour, right, watches as a crewman raises the spinnaker in preparation for a downwind leg. Gilmour, of Australia, defeated Welshman Eddie Warden-Owen to advance to today's semifinals.