Salvage workers yesterday retrieved the wreckage of the boat which sank in the Great Sound after colliding with another vessel competing in International Race Week.

The Etchells class boat, skippered by Australian Bill Steele, went down a half mile from Somerset Bridge on Tuesday after being sliced open by an International One Design vessel taking part in another race.

It was located, winched to the surface and towed to Dockyard yesterday by Tim Patton and his barge.

Steele, who was awarded sixth place in the race, will continue competing in the Etchells class today after finding another boat to borrow yesterday.

And he will be able to use the sails from the sunken craft, which were recovered with only minimal damage.

Patton set out to find the stricken boat at 8.00 a.m. yesterday, hampered by the fact that exact co-ordinates of where it sank had not been recorded.

"We dragged a diver for about two-and-a-half hours in a search grid pattern and found it about 100 yards from where we were told it had sunk,'' said Patton.

Asked to describe the boat's condition, Patton added: "Let's just say I don't think it will ever race again. The sails were recovered but the crew would have lost some of their gear.'' The sunken boat was winched up from 35 feet down and manoeuvred between the two pontoon sections of the barge before being taken to Dockyard.

The 3,600-pound boat was then lifted to the dockside with a crane and loaded onto a trailer ready for inspection by an insurance representative.

Talbot Wilson, press officer for International Race Week, explained why Steele, whose race ended 400 yards from the finish, had been awarded sixth place.

"The jury decided on the basis of where he was in relation to other boats and at the time of the accident he was just behind the boat which finished fifth,'' said Wilson.

The race was the third in the series of eight in the Etchells class and the other competitors decided not to go through with Tuesday's second race without Steele. Yesterday was a rest day and the postponed race will be added to today's schedule.

The first trophy to be won this week, the Bermuda Race Week Championship `A' in the IOD class, went to American skipper Bruce Dyson and his crew of Bill Widnall, Greg Mancusi-Ungaro and Bob Duffy.

In second place was Bermuda's Harry Powell, with Penny Simmons, Jordy Walker, Lisa Spurling and Marlie Powell, while Swedish skipper Urban Ristorp placed third.

Dyson, from Marblehead, Massachusetts, won the five-race with one discarded series with a total of 73 points, well clear of Powell (14) and Ristorp (141 ).

And Dyson is now well placed to take three trophies home after winning the first race of the week's second IOD series, the Norwegian Series `B', in which Craig Davis placed second and Powell retired. The Vrengen Gold Cup goes to the overall winner of the combined series.

Bermuda's Paula Lewin has fallen away after winning the opening race in the Etchells class. She placed fifth in the second race and was disqualified from the third, leaving her 10th.

But Lewin's brother Andreas won the third race to leave himself second in the standings on 153 points, behind the leading skipper, Britain's Stephen Bailey on 14.

Another Briton, Stuart Jardine, leads the J-24 class after winning two of the six races so far. Behind him is American Frank Keesling, and Bermuda's Jon Corless.

Hull raising: Scott Simmons' Etchells is lifted from its watery grave after it sunk on Tuesday when an IOD skippered by American Tony Huston ran into it in rough conditions in International Race Week.