A new king has been crowned on the waters of Hamilton Harbour.

Australian James Spithill won the Investors Guaranty presentation of the King Edward VII Gold Cup match race championship yesterday, beating the defending champion Russell Coutts in a thrilling finale 3-2.

Spithill, 26, the Luna Rossa Italian America?s Cup helmsman and current world champion, lost the first of the best-of-five final at the start, regained his composure in the second heat, but lost again to the seven-time Gold Cup winner in the third.

This left the Australian with an uphill battle of winning the final two races, but far from buckling under the pressure, Spithill took total control of both starts and the rest was history.

Congratulating his Luna Rossa crew of Joe Newton (Australia), Magnus Augustson (Sweden) and Charlie McKee (USA), Spithill said: ?I have wanted to win the Gold Cup for a long time.

?I have been second and fourth and we really wanted to win it against Russell because this is his event. It all came down to making good starts, and I shut him out on the last one.?

Now in its 57th year, the Bermuda Gold Cup has long been considered one of the world?s premier match-racing events.

Coutts, who conceded the last race after the first round, having hit the committee boat at the start, was gracious in defeat. ?It really did come down to the starts in all five races. James is the world champion and he sailed here very well.?

After a week of variable weather, conditions on the final day were perfect with 15 to 20 knot winds across the harbour.

Coutts won the first start and split off from the young Australian towards the Hamilton shore in search of wind pressure, and won handily.

Their second encounter was much closer and arriving at the top mark together, Coutts picked up a penalty for forcing Spithill to make room for him. That made it one-all.

In the third race, Coutts again headed straight out towards the Hamilton shore. Spithill failed to cover and found himself 10 boat lengths down at the top mark. Now it was 2-1 to the New Zealander who had only to inflict one more victory to win for a record eighth time.

But it was not to be. In the fourth encounter, Spithill won the starboard advantage and rounded just ahead of Coutts at the top mark. The pair then remained locked together for the rest of the duel with Spithill taking the winning gun by little more than a bow length.

It was now down to a final fifth. Spithill dominated the pre-start and pinned his opponent down so close to the committee boat that he hit it and was forced to do a penalty turn. By the time he had recovered, Spithill was 10 boat lengths clear and sure to dethrone the King of the Gold Cup.

Coutts saw it all as a hopeless case and conceded the race after one round so that his Danish crew could catch their flight home.

In the petite-finals to decide third and fourth place, Steffan Lindberg of Finland defeated Ed Baird from Team Alinghi 2-0.

Baird, who was beaten by Spithill in the morning semi-finals 3-2, could not overtake the fast moving Finns who dominated both races.

On Saturday, former champion Chris Dickson of New Zealand was forced to settle for fifth place after being eliminated with Mathieu Richard of France taking sixth, Gavin Brady of Hong Kong seventh and Ian Williams of the UK eighth.