As the gales subsided so returned the fluky charm of Hamilton Harbour, lending to the excitement of the quarter-final stage of the Colorcraft Gold Cup yesterday.

Guaranteed following the day's battles was that there will be an unseeded skipper contesting the final, with qualifiers Chris Dickson of New Zealand and Australia's James Spithill going through to meet each other in one of today's semi-final matches.

Spithill once again showed his penchant for the dramatic -- and not too little skill -- coming back from the brink of defeat to upend number four seed Peter Holmberg of the US Virgin Islands 3-1 with brilliant tactical manoeuvres during the fourth race.

Indeed the 21-year-old showed that while he may be young in the game he possesses much of the savvy attributed to veterans, as he was able to miraculously make up some three boat-lengths on the final downwind leg and then lure Holmberg into a deadly gybe.

"We got a penalty off the start, which was obviously our fault, but we still got off the line alright and then just got out of phase at the top allowing him to get out front,'' explained Spithill, as he and his crew basked in the glory of a good victory under the RBYC canopy.

"But the guys didn't give up, they fought hard, made zero mistakes for the rest of the legs and just caught up there and didn't give up to the end. We were able to get in there and get an overlap on him and some rights, luff and get our penalty back.

"So, basically it was not giving in, not relaxing, and really keeping at him.'' For Holmberg the defeat was a tough pill to swallow, as he knew that, considering the advantage he had in being well out front and with a penalty on his rival, he had probably lost the match as much as his opponent had won.

"Obviously there's probably another way of doing it, but it's not as easy as everyone thinks,'' said Holmberg, who once found himself knocking at the Gold Cup door only to be turned away.

"I mean, the fellow's coming in there, I got out of there before he threw the hard punch, which meant I got the punch later, but I think it would have happened if I did it (gybed) later on as well.

"In hindsight ... I probably made a bit of a mistake.'' As for today's impending match against Dickson, who may well be the most cagey of them all, Spithill said that he and his crew looked forward to the challenge presented by the Kiwi, a two-time winner of the Gold Cup (1987 and 1989).

"Chris is going to be tough, he's really fast in the boats, he went 3-0 against Murray, who's pretty quick in the boats as well, so we're pretty surprised,'' said Spithill.

"But we beat him in the round robin in the unseeded round, so we know we can take races off him, and we're pretty happy knowing that even if we get into a tough situation where we're down a few races we can fight our way back.

"So we're looking forward to it ... and just having a bit of fun.'' Dickson for his part appeared to be rounding into top form, making quick work of Murray Jones and was the only skipper to going through the best-of-five series of matches without dropping a race.

The third outing was typical Dickson, who on the second downwind leg lulled Jones into a luffing affair that led the latter into a collision course with Spithill, involved in another race.

Forced to take evasive action Jones successfully avoided the other craft, but by the time he recovered Dickson had long gone.

"The third race we peeled him off at a bad time, got the next puff and were happy to sail away,'' said Dickson of the incident. "We're pleased to have made another cut and still be able to progress to the next level.

"We have to race anyway, so we're happy that we're going to be racing for the good slots.

"He (Spithill) beat us in the qualifying round when we met him, and he's come back from the beyond a couple of times in the last few days. So we have plenty of respect for James and his guys.'' The other semi-final fixture will have five-time winner Russell Coutts taking on Ed Baird, who ousted another past winner Peter Gilmour of Australia in a match that went down to the wire, with Baird emerging victorious by a 3-2 margin. Coutts defeated Swede Magnus Holmberg 3-1.

"Obviously it's our great day to be able to beat Peter with his team that he's been sailing with for so long,'' said Baird, who hails from Florida.

"This is our second event together and it's definitely exciting to be able to get through to semis. We're learning each race, trying to catch up and we had some good breaks today.'' Still, he realised that to be able to make the final he and his crew will have to do whatever other catching up they need in an awful hurry considering the form exhibited by Coutts, despite operating in some pain after having spent much of Thursday in hospital receiving treatment for inflamed chest cartilage.

"I think the trick with those guys is to get off the starting line at least equal with him,'' said Baird. "If you can do that you might have a chance to play the shifts well, and on a day like today that was everything.'' Ed Baird: Taken to the limit before beating Peter Gilmour to qualify for today's semi-finals.