A contentious penalty call made the difference as two Bermuda Gold Cup behemoths went head to head in the final flight on day one.

The world’s highest-ranked match-racing sailors, Chris Poole, of the United States, and Sweden’s Johnie Berntsson were both unbeaten as they took each other on in the last of four round-robin races on the opening day.

After Berntsson received a penalty in pre-start, the American appeared to hold sway until the umpires judged he was at fault for failing to give his opponent room and it was a decision Poole found difficult to take.

“I thought we were doing what we were required to do to keep clear,” he said.

“We had a good pre-start going and we executed our strategy exactly as we wanted.

“We were down towards the pin end of the line but didn’t have room to start there and Johnie went for the hook, so we were happy to let him hook us.

“As soon as he went for the hook, I started altering and the umpires felt that we took too much room, which was surprising as you can’t exactly turn an IOD on a dime.

“As soon as there was an overlap, we were altering in order to keep a clear boat and the umpires felt that we took much room. That’s their view, and our view is we were altering as soon as we had to keep clear.

“Johnie is obliged to give the winning boat an opportunity to get out of there and we were doing everything we could, but the umpires gave it back.”

Defeat left Poole with a 3-1 record on the opening day after wins over Gavin Brady, Nick Egnot-Johnson and Bermuda’s Kelsey Durham, while victory for Berntsson ensured he goes into day two as the only sailor with a 100 per cent record.

After his win over Poole supplemented victories against Eric Monnin, Cole Tapper and Hood, the Swedish skipper was understandably delighted.

“We put on a show in that last race after we picked up a couple of penalties, which was bad on me, but we managed to equalise one and then extend to take the penalty on the finish line,” Berntsson said.

“It’s never bad to win and we were so happy with that as you never know what happens in the week, so every point on the scoreboard will probably count at the end.”

There were some close races out on Hamilton Harbour and Berntsson was pleased at the level of competition.

“We wanted to have some tight races so we could have some fights during the race. We really love that and it’s good to have early tight races as it levels you up a bit.”

Leading the regatta is always where Berntsson wants to be and he is pleased to be heading into day two with an advantage, although he believes there is still room for improvement.

“The boys on board did a good job and I am really happy,” he said.

“We improved throughout the day and our communication just got better and better. I think we could maybe go for the spinnaker hoist a bit faster so we might make some changes to the set up and I may play the game a bit more defensive in the pre-start.”

Bermudian Durham is representing the island at the regatta and he finished the day on a high by picking up a win over Cole Tapper in his final flight.

“It’s good to finish on a high and it definitely feels good to get a win in. We could have won the race before that as well but we had some mistakes.

“I haven’t match raced since 2020, I’ve been fleet racing since then, so to pick up a win on the first day feel great, especially against the competition that we have. If you look at the guys’ rankings they are all in the top 20 in the world and they do it for a living.

“The first race back was against Chris Poole, a good friend, but he’s No 1 in the world and match races all the time, and he didn’t even beat us that much. We were there every race with everybody.”

Durham felt that there was improvement throughout the morning from crew Nico Stefani, Peter Dill and Mike Wellman.

“We definitely got better as the day went on and hopefully tomorrow we can get a couple more wins,” he said.

“You’ve got to be off the start line first and be close to the other guys in order to even be competitive. We only got one penalty on us and we gave out three, so we will just continue to look to improve.”