off his fifth Gold Cup title at the championship's 50th anniversary in Hamilton Harbour yesterday.

The New Zealander -- the only sailor to win Olympic gold, the America's Cup and the world match racing title -- had endured a five-month absence from the circuit because of the illness, but was back to his best to see off the challenge of his Team New Zealand colleague Murray Jones.

Coutts, who had seen his world ranking drop four places to six this year, overcame Jones by three flights to one in conditions which seemed to change by the minute from blustery and bright to windless and wet.

Jones may well have been feeling the pace himself after advancing through the qualifying rounds to become the first unseeded competitor to reach the final.

Coutts admitted aftewards that the 1998 tournament had been the toughest of his wins on the Island.

"This year was one of the harder ones because we haven't done a lot of match racing for one reason or another,'' he said. "I got sick early on and we also planned to do some other forms of racing this year. It was pretty tough and I think we only really gelled together today.'' Asked about the state of his health, he replied: "It's a funny thing, I thought I was over the glandular fever and started running and exercising about a month ago.

"Then I had to stop because I went through another low period. And just the other day I felt really weak when I got on the boat against Gavin Brady.'' Coutts, backed by his long-term crew of jib and spinnaker trimmer Simon Daubney, mainsheet trimmer Warwick Fleury and tactician Brad Butterworth, lost the start of the first flight to Jones but by the first windward mark had edged in front.

Jones took advantage of huge wind shifts -- some as much as 90 degrees -- to close the gap but it was Coutts who ghosted across the line to win after a heavy downnpour had left all chutes limp.

Coutts grabbed a narrow victory in the second race to take him to championship point but an early start in the third allowed his opponent to open up a four-boat-length lead as he was forced to re-start.

Jones held on to that lead to give him a chance but it was Coutts who made the right choice in the fourth as the pair went on split tacks.

That gave Coutts an eight-second advantage at the top mark and when Jones failed to get a good spinnaker set on the second leg, Coutts extended that.

Coutts then got a huge lift on his final lap to win by 42 seconds.

Jones, who'd had a 5-2 score in the qualifiers before beating seventh seed Neville Wittey, second seed Chris Law and third seed Peter Holmberg, admitted afterwards: "It's been a pretty long week for us coming through the qualifiers. There's been a lot of racing.

"But I must congratulate Russell and his crew. They did a great job and showed again that there's a huge step up to the level that they are on.'' Coutts was equally magnanimous about his opponent: "I think these boats, the slower turning boats, suit Murray well,'' he said.

"In that sense they're much the same as America's Cup boats -- and he's pretty competitive in those.

"He had some good guys with him and you've got to remember it's a team sport.

I mean, two of them I've used before to win match-racing worlds.

"They're on our team and we pool our talent. You get to choose your guys from that and I thought he had a particularly good combination for these kind of conditions -- you know, the shifty air and all the rest of it. He's got a very good tactician on board and that's one of the key things for Bermuda.'' Coutts had avenged his defeat in the final last year by beating Australian world number one Peter Gilmour 3-2 in Saturday's semis while Jones, who made the last four 12 months ago in his first appearance at the regatta, recovered from 2-0 down against Holmberg to make it an all-Kiwi final. Gilmour had to settle for third this time round, defeating Holmberg 2-0 in the best-of-three petit final.

Gavin Brady took fifth, Chris Law sixth, Markus Wieser seventh and John Cutler eighth in Saturday's racing to decide those positions.

VICTORY CHARGE -- Russell Coutts leads Team New Zealand colleague Murray Jones downwind on his way to a 3-1 win in yesterday's Bermuda Gold Cup final. Coutts (below), the 1995 America's Cup winner, clinched his fifth triumph in the annual match racing regatta.