of International Race Week as the favourites found their oasis.

Locals Peter Bromby, Brett Wright, Malcolm Smith and Stevie Dickinson each discovered the fertile patch that they hope will be the springboard to ultimate success at the annual regatta.

As usual many eyes were on the Etchells class and Bromby in his new boat Trumps . And the local legend, holding back early on, soon laid his cards on the table and, not surprisingly, produced a winning hand.

"Yeah, licks were trumps today,'' said Bromby, a multiple past winner at the regatta, which this year is being sponsored by Bacardi.

From the start Bromby, with Mike Tatem calling the shifts and fellow David Lamb also lending his assistance, appeared as a big cat on the hunt, silently stalking its prey before pouncing and effecting the kill.

Sixth after the first windward beat, Bromby steadily advanced and was second behind John Kennerson of the United States after two loops.

However, Kennerson was routinely devoured during the third upwind leg as Bromby drew alongside, tacked left, then right, gained separation, threw in a few covering manoeuvres and was gone.

At the end Bromby insisted it was not nearly so easy.

"We had a fairly good start, not wonderful, but we were able to hit the shifts, were patient, waited for them to come back to us, miss a couple shifts and us get some luck and off we go,'' said Bromby, who has a cumulative total of 4.75 points from two races. "It was a tricky day where no lead was too big ... fortunately we got the gun in the end.

"One of the things we had to do today was to keep an eye on the competition, and that's what we were doing in the first beat, when people might say that we had a bit of a mediocre beat. But the reality was that we weren't trying to get to the mark first, we were trying to get it ahead of certain boats.

"If you look, we weren't giving up leverage to Paul (Fisher) and Andreas (Lewin). Timmy (Patton) had already shot himself in the foot, and on the first beat our goal was just to not give up a big one to Paul or Andreas, who were ahead of us in the series.'' Patton (12 points) and Fisher (8.75) had disastrous second outings, with Fisher, after placing first on Sunday, finishing eighth while Patton dropped out with a mechanical failure. Lewin (7) moved to second overall based on a fourth place finish and American Tim Lynch (8) stood third, although all would know the mountain to climb that is Bromby.

"It was just a case of bad sailing,'' remarked Fisher afterwards. "I couldn't get on the right side of the wind shifts, and just couldn't figure it out ...

"What has to happen now is that I have to sail smart and get lucky somewhere.

Because once you let Peter get on top it's awfully hard to get him off of there.'' Similarly announcing his pedigree in the J-24 Class was Canada's Sean McDermott. The defending champion notched his second bullet in two races and took over the leadership in the battle for the Gripper Trophy with a total of 10.5 points.

Timing the start to perfection, the Halifax, Nova Scotia resident led from wire to wire.

"It was a big hole at the start of the second race and we managed to put ourselves next to the committee boat, stall the boat and wait for the gun and took off,'' explained the effervescent McDermott. "We only had one boat to consider and by the top of the first leg we had about a 300 foot lead and we hung onto it. The rest of the legs we just covered them and kept placing more and more distance between ourselves and the rest of the fleet, so it was a very easy go the last race tactically.

"My job all along really was just to drive the boat, because crew was telling me where to go, how to sail through the waves, where the competition was, and I just steered the boat ... a very easy job.'' Standing second after yesterday was Don Wagoner (12), with Stuart Jardine (15.75) third.

Among the other classes, Smith leads the Sunfish with 2.25 points, Dickinson heads the Snipes (2.25), Brett Wright (3.5) tops the Lasers, Ali Meller (1.5) controls the 505, and Courtenal Jenkins (11.75) governs the IOD fleet.

Full results, see Scoreboard