Bromby as Bermuda's top match racer slumped out of the Gold Cup at the quarter-final stage on a day of high drama in Hamilton Harbour.

Bromby was celebrating his fifth wedding anniversary but found precious little else to enjoy as Gilmour returned a three-nil scoreline while all the other matches went down to the wire.

Peter Holmberg, the number four seed, came back from two-nil down against his namesake, Magnus, to snatch victory by just five seconds in their final encounter; Gavin Brady was a broken main sheet away from ousting world number one and Gold Cup title-holder Russell Coutts; and unseeded Murray Jones, tactician on Team New Zealand's America's Cup winner Black Magic , dumped Ed Baird, the former coach of that team, out of the competition.

Bromby had started well enough, slipping to just an eight second defeat in the first flight of the best-of-five series. And although Gilmour won the second flight comfortably, Bromby allowed the World Match Race champion to eat into a huge lead he had created in the third.

The Bermudian turned at the bottom marker for the final leg some six or seven boat lengths in front but a tactical mistake let Gilmour take advantage of a fresher breeze and skirt past him close to the top marker.

Bromby made desperate efforts to make amends on the downwind leg but only succeeded in infringing close to the finish line, effectively handing the match to his opponent.

Gilmour confessed afterwards: "The three-nil scoreline flatters to deceive.

Peter Bromby sailed particularly well, managing to lead us round more markers but we just managed to keep close enough to use the depth of time there is in match-racing.'' And there was as much relief as joy in his voice when he added: "For years we've met Peter down here and we've managed to beat him each time. But I've had enough of him!'' A disappointed Bromby, still to get to his first semi-final, said: "I didn't feel the luck of the Lord shined on us. He got some breaks and we got some breaks, but he got more than we did.

"I thought my crew did a fantastic job and I can be held responsible for the scoreline.'' If there was any residual disappointment among local spectators at Bromby's demise in the morning, the remaining six racers more than made up for it in an afternoon of competition that was probably as good as it gets.

Gavin Brady, the New Zealander sailing under the flag of Hong Kong, might have been two-one up going into his fourth flight against Russell Coutts instead of vice versa. After surprising Coutts by coming from behind to win the first flight, he had his nose in front in the second when his main sheet tore.

Coutts then took the third by 13 seconds after Brady advanced over the start line prematurely, but copped a penalty in the start sequence of the fourth which his 23-year-old opponent took advantage of to win.

And although Coutts always had the edge in the fifth, Brady made a brave effort to run him down at the top marker. However, he then elected to break away rather than trailing him downwind, only to find the conditions less favourable.

Brady said later: "We had a game plan to sail pretty close to Russell and it feels really good to have gone round the course with him. Unfortunately in the last race we couldn't quite pull it off. But our day will come.'' Bromby hopes dashed again From Page 13 Coutts agreed with that summary, saying: "Their day is going to come, there's no doubt about that. And he admitted: "It's been a tough year for us: we haven't been sailing as well as before.'' Such sentiments will come as music to the ears of his semi-final opponent Peter Holmberg, whose match with Magnus Holmberg, seeded one below him, seemed a foregone conclusion when the Swede swept into a two-nil lead.

But the US Virgin Islander hung in to take flights three and four and seemed to have snatched it when he opened up a comfortable lead in the decider. From somewhere, however, the Scandinavian conjured up some extra inspiration to press his opponent every inch of the way.

Peter Holmberg admitted afterwards a break in proceedings after the second flight due to boat problems had been to his team's advantage.

"Magnus sailed really well in the first two, but the little lunch break helped us,'' he said.

But for the demoralised Magnus, defeat was hard to take. "It's pretty tough,'' he said. "We've never been two-up before and lost. We were really fired up for the last race; we had a good start and I thought we were sailing on the right side.'' Baird, meanwhile, lost out in a topsy-turvy battle with the tenacious Murray Jones, but was gracious in defeat.

The number three seed said: "Murray and his team have worked very hard to improve their skills and it's showing. Russell (Coutts) says maybe he's not sailing as well as he used to but I'm not sure that's true.

"I think we're seeing a very consistent gain in talent all through the events.'' BANKING ON SUCCESS -- Australian Peter Gilmour and his crew ended the Gold Cup hopes of Bermuda's Peter Bromby yesterday to set up a semi-final meeting with another non-seed, New Zealander Murray Jones.