Great Britain's Ben Ainslie has won a lot of gold, but never the King Edward VII Gold Cup.

Yesterday he moved into the quarter-finals of this week's prestigious match-racing regatta with a perfect 7-0 record.

That's the first step towards the trophy but Ainslie will be well aware that a year ago Ian Williams was also 7-0 at this stage and didn't make it into the finals.

Yesterday, the Brit defeated Frenchman Seb Col, Kiwi Adam Minoprio and Sweden's Bjorn Hansen on another flawless day of sailing for the multi-medal Olympian.

Ainslie doesn't compete much in match racing but when he does, he does it well.

All of the top two teams in each group automatically moved up to the quarter-final stage. Joining Ainslie in the quarters in second place at 4-3 was Adam Minoprio.

Group One saw Swiss Eric Monnin and Williams (GBR) both finish at 6-1.

The top two in Group three were last year's Gold cup winner Johnie Berntsson of Sweden at 6-1 and 2007 Gold Cup champion Mathieu Richard from France.

The remaining slots in the quarter-finals will go to the top two in the repecharge round robin which is still in progress (see story below). The third and fourth finishers in each group made it into the six-team round robin that will finish this morning.

Organisers had hoped to get all of the round-robin racing completed yesterday but a frontal passage with the possiblity of lightning and a departing cruise ship in Hamilton Harbour delayed the start.

Once racing began around 10.30, the committee set start after start in short order. Winds were fresh out of the northwest at about 18-20 knots most of the day.

As usual, the competition was fierce and umpires handed out multiple penalties. Australia's Peter Gilmour and Bermuda's Paula Lewin both got flagged and Damian Iehl got his second black flag of the event.

That brought the total to eight black flags for the regatta.

Racing continues this morning at 9.00 with the last flights of the repercharge followed by quarter-final action.