As predicted, tension was in the Bermuda air yesterday morning as sailing got underway in Hamilton Harbour in the round-robin races of the Argo Group Gold Cup, stage eight of the World Match Racing Tour.

The first match of the first flight between Damian Iehl of France and New Zealand's Reuben Corbett (NZL) also saw the first penalty.

At the first leeward mark, Iehl first luffed Corbett without rights. Then according to the umpire, Henry Menin, he failed to give room in the mark zone and continued to break rule after rule.

Iehl was black-flagged and the match automatically went to Corbett. Menin said that Iehl had two penalty flags flying and if he had more flags on the boat they would have pulled them out, too.

Following that display, the penalty flags flew fast and often.

In the feature match of the morning between two 3-0 teams, top seed Tovar Mirsky of Australia and Switzerland's Eric Monnin, the latter drew a penalty in the pre-start dance when he was pushing Mirsky away from the line.

Mirsky still got the start and held the lead all the way around the course. Monnin made a gallant effort as he came inside a boat length at the finish even after making his penalty turn.

Mirsky went 4-0 for the day and is at the top of the heap for now. But he admitted he had some come from behind victories.

"We started well," the young Aussie said. "It was tough sailing in the light and shifty conditions. We were able to roll some of our competitors downwind to get the wins.In the race against Monnin, he couldn't get far enough ahead of us to make up his penalty turn."

That loss set Monnin at 3-1 and he had earlier defeated Britain's Ian Williams.

Williams, reigning World Tour champion, is also at 3-1 following four flights. Group Three will sail their final three flights of the round robin today.

Group Two got off to a slow start and just finished one flight before the wind shifted and went from the five to seven knots southwesterly to about three knots or less from the south-southwest.

Following the last match of Flight One, the wind completely failed and the sailors were called back to Royal Bermuda Yacht Club to wait for the wind to return. The committee had hoped to get in four flights for each group on the first day but the wind gods wouldn't cooperate.

The sailors will have their skippers' meeting one hour earlier today and sailing will start an hour earlier, too. Organisers hope to finish four flights for all three groups before foul weather expected with a front late today and into Thursday pushes through.