yesterday when he had a perfect four wins from four races to all but book his place in Wednesday's first round.

"It was a little bit tense out there today. Everyone was a bit nervous,'' said an elated Bromby. "But being 4-0 should help us to relax tomorrow.'' Bromby began his victory charge by leading home the only female skipper in the regatta, Dawn Riley, in race one.

And then it was Germany's Markus Wieser's turn to lose out to Bermuda's most talented sailor.

But it was the battle between Bromby and Holland's Roy Heiner that produced the closest finish of the day -- Bromby finally getting the better of the Dutchman by a single second.

"It was nice to get on the winning end of that one,'' admitted Bromby, who went on to complete his perfect set with an impressive win over previously unbeaten Peter Holmberg of the US Virgin Islands.

The race, in which Holmberg finally conceded defeat, provided a fitting finale to an exciting day on which Bromby and his crew -- Lee White, Penny Simmons, and Dennis Correia -- took centre stage.

Bromby emerged from group two of the qualifiers as the only unbeaten skipper, with three of his victims -- Holmberg, Heiner and Weiser -- breathing down his neck with three wins apiece.

Riley, together with Pedros Campos of Spain and Per Asmussen of Denmark, all had one win, while Mike Elias of the US was the only skipper who failed to get off the mark yesterday.

With three flights left to sail today, the winner of Bromby's qualifying group will meet number seven seed Marc Pajot of France in the first round of the championship.

The winner of qualifying group two, in which Robert Fry of New Zealand and Lorenz Muller of Switzerland were the only undefeated skippers yesterday, will have the dubious pleasure of meeting the 1988 champion John Kolius, seeded eight, in round one.

Fry, who has lived in Japan for more than 20 years, was afterguard and shore boss for the Nippon Challenge in the 1992 America Cup when Chris Dickson, ranked number one for the Gold Cup, was skipper.

Muller is a newcomer to match racing and is better known as a Tornado sailor.

Fry, it was, who had the easiest time of it yesterday, winning two of his three races by a margin of nearly two minutes.

It was Bermuda's Paul Fisher who provided his closest challenge, losing out by just 14 seconds in the opening race of the day.

Fisher, who stepped into the Gold Cup arena at the 11th hour, also gave Muller his toughest test, once again losing out by 14 seconds.

Fisher, who partnered Bromby in the Star Class at the Barcelona Olympics decided to step in and fill the remaining berth at the last minute.

"I'm in it for the experience,'' he said. "I didn't have a crew until 6 o'clock last night.'' Crewing for Fisher, who is well known for his feats in fitted dinghies, are three other former Olympians -- in the shape of Glenn Astwood and Eddie Bardgett, (Tornadoes, 1988) and Ray DeSilva (470s, 1992) -- to boost his Gold Cup challenge.

"Maybe if we had had a chance to practise it would have been a different story,'' said Fisher, reflecting on his three losses -- the worst of which was by a margin of 35 seconds to Sweden's Magnus Holmberg.

"I think we were a little unlucky. But we're having a good time. We won two starts out of three.'' Fisher is no stranger to Gold Cup glory having crewed for Kolius when he won the event in 1988. "But that's the last time I did match racing and crewing is a lot different to being the skipper.'' Martin Siese, who earned his place in the regatta by finishing second to Bromby in the Bank of Bermuda Cup, enjoyed a better start than Fisher.

He was one of three sailors in the hotly-contested group one who had two victories from the opening three races.

Siese, the local leader in the IOD class this season, despatched Americans Steve Benjamin and Bill Buckles -- both winless yesterday -- before coming up against Germany's Jorg Diesch.

Diesch, who had a good run in the Gold Cup in 1990 when he made it to the semifinals before being knocked out by Russell Coutts, finished 17 seconds ahead of the Bermudian, to end the day in a three-way tie with him and Holmberg.

Siese said he was reasonably pleased with his start to the regatta. "Our crew work was excellent and we had some good spinnaker hoists. I thought we were far better on our chute work than anyone else, but we made a few costly mistakes. We lost all three of our starts.'' Steven King, Tom Wadson and Kevin Horsfield will be on board again today as Siese bids to claim the right to take on one of the regatta's top seeds.

The remaining four flights in group one will be sailed today.

Eight skippers, four from each of the qualifying groups, will progress to the first round of the championship to face the eight seeds.

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT -- Peter Bromby, right, is collided into by Peter Holmberg during their match race in Hamilton Harbour yesterday. Bromby was unperturbed and beat Holmberg by 47 seconds on his way to a 4-0 record thus far in the qualifying round.