There were mixed fortunes for Bermuda's match race skippers on the first day of the qualifying rounds of the Gold Cup in perfect conditions in Hamilton Harbour yesterday.

Peter Bromby, winner of the last two Bermuda national championships, performed magnificently to win all four of his races, while Adam Barboza, competing in a separate group, had a promising start, winning two of his races with the third a bye.

But while Bromby's success signals his automatic qualification for the last 16 of the event, which starts on Wednesday when the main seeds join the fray, Paula Lewin, ranked above both Bromby and Barboza at 49th in the current world standings, has it all to do on the second day of qualifying today after slumping to three defeats in her four races, including one against her old rival.

In fact Bromby, who also beat Lewin in the finals of the Island championships, could use his remaining three matches today to engineer a favourable draw in the championship stage, although it might equally be said that winning is a habit which it is best not to kick.

Only in two of the contests was Bromby -- the highest unseeded scorer in 1993 -- really stretched, although in both, against Lewin and Briton Andy Green, he ultimately emerged a comfortable winner by over 20 seconds.

The match with Green, in particular, was a cat and mouse affair, with the lead changing hands on several occasions before Bromby eventually pulled away.

Bromby later praised the tactical skills of Green, who may have benefited from the local knowledge of Bermudian crew member Glen Astwood.

"As the day went on we managed to improve tactically but at one point he was out-sailing us,'' admitted Bromby.

Adam Barboza's day started with the bonus of a bye -- "the first race was probably the easiest,'' he joked later -- because there are only seven sailors in his part of the draw.

But he won both of his other matches, defeating Swede Helena Strang, 60 places above him in the Omega rankings, by 29 seconds, and Russian Andrew Nikolaev who was beaten over three races by eventual runner-up Peter Gilmour last year.

Barboza, who advanced to the championship stage last year and in 1994, starts the second day needing two more victories from four races to do so again.

Lewin, however, was left bemoaning a series of errors, including incurring a penalty by sailing into a restricted zone at the top marker that prevented her adding to her single but comprehensive victory over American Bill Buckles, who failed to win a race.

"We're disappointed,'' she admitted at the end of the day. "It would have been nice to be sitting here with a better score. "There was no opponent we couldn't have beaten, but we made too many mistakes.'' But she remained bullish about her chances of winning all three of today's encounters -- something she needs to do to advance to the championship stages.

"We have been in this position before,'' she added.

"In a similar round-robin tournament at Marble Head in Massachusetts three years ago we lost the first four, but we came back to win the next four and qualify. So we just have to give it everything.'' Full results -- see Scoreboard