That is the question pervading around the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club as the premier match racing spectacle that is the $100,000 Brut Gold Cup approaches.

The New Zealand native has proceeded to slay all manner of competition while sweeping the first four events of the Brut Sailing Series -- not to mention stuffing his pockets with bundles of cold, hard cash.

Included among his triumphs have been victories at the Brut Cups of Royal Lymington, San Francisco, France and New York, with the Bermuda regatta viewed as icing on an already frosting-filled cake.

And over the past weekend the Kiwi added the title of 1996 World Match Racing champion to his resume after yet another unabashed win in Croatia.

Nevertheless, rumoured challengers abound, even though most -- if not all -- are being looked upon as no more than potential spoilers and, more likely, unwilling victims of the Coutts juggernaut.

Yet, optimism abounds among the stellar international field, one which contains seven of the top ten ranked skippers on the Omega World Match Race Rankings list, and none more than in the corner of world number two Ed Baird of Florida.

Baird, beaten 3-0 during the final of the Croatia regatta, pointed to the law of averages while discussing his chances of earning his first Gold Cup win.

"Well, he's having a very good year, but those things come to an end,'' said the affable Baird, always a local crowd favourite. "Bermuda has been a place where he's always done well, however a lot of us are closing the gap.'' "He beat us in the final (in Croatia), but we beat him in both of the round robin races. That's how the days go, you do better on some than you do on others.

"It's pretty close. He's been having a good year but all of us are out there working hard at it and eventually that good year is going to start going away.

It's been going well for us the last few weeks, so I hope that's a sign that it's going to be our turn in Bermuda.'' Rapid compliance to the slower, less responsive, yet patently elegant International One Design craft used for the Bermuda event is mandatory for any legitimate challenge, noted Baird.

Then there is the natural amphitheatre that is Hamilton Harbour, an area which challenges the skill of skippers and crew in reading fluctuating air currents while at the same time maintaining a swift course.

"The boats are unique, so you have to quickly adapt to how they're sailed compared to other boats that we race in and just like everywhere else you need to have good boat handling and a very alert crew to watch what's happening with the weather,'' said Baird, set to arrive on Monday with his crew of Tony Ray, who will act as tactician and main trimmer, Ross Halcrow (trimmer) and Geordie Shavers (bow).

"Being inside the Harbour it's a wild place to sail and anything can happen.

You have to play the wind shifts because there's so much going on, but you have to put yourself in position at the start to do that and a lot of times we've been frustrated because we've gotten a good start, only to find that we've pushed our competitor into the right place on the wind shift.

"So having those two things in harmony with each other is the way to win things there.'' Thus far Baird's best finish has been third, that coming back in 1993 when he downed Australian Peter Gilmour in the Petit final.

Since then he has reached the quarter-finals (1994) and again made it as far as the semis a year ago before being eliminated by Gilmour, with the lanky Aussie going on to take his first title by defeating Chris Law of Britain.

A confessed lover of Bermuda and its people, Baird would dearly love to take more than memories of another failure back to the Sunshine State this time around.

"We go to every event to try and win and that's certainly what we want to do there,'' he said, his voice rising in apparent anticipation. "There's good prize money, good points, a good, prestigious event close to home, so all of those things make it a nice one to win.

"We haven't won it and for a variety of reasons we've finished in different places. Still we're excited to come there, it's one of our favourite events and we always enjoy being in Bermuda...maybe that's why we haven't won.

"As far as all the events in the world it's one of the very, very best and has set the standard for years for all the other events to try and match. it has very professional race management, very good prize money, good spectators and a lot of interest from the country, so having all those things in one place makes it a lot more fun.'' "In all of these events -- and especially in Bermuda -- there's a number of people that can win them. as you saw last year we were very close to being eliminated on the first day by Blythe Walker and the year before that we had a tough day against Chris Dickson.

"Each competitor you come up against, if they're having a good day it's going to be very difficult to beat.'' The Brut Gold Cup starts on Sunday with qualifying for the eight unseeded skippers and runs until October 13, when the final is scheduled.

FLYING KIWI -- New Zealand skipper Russ Coutts (left) and his crew celebrate their victory over US skipper Ed Baird's boat in the final of the World Match Race Championships in Croatia, Sunday. The two will clash again in Bermuda next week.