Bromby fell to Australia's Peter Gilmour at the quarter-final stage.

However, this was only after the local had engaged in an enthralling encounter tinged with controversy against the world number one ranked match racer.

Bromby went down 3-1, but still received kudos from most observers following what could only be described as a dogfight with Gilmour and his crack Nippon crew.

The Bermudian won the first race before losing the second, but this only after Gilmour had planted a disputed penalty on Bromby during the final leg to leeward.

On course umpires were treated to a verbal barrage from Bromby and his crew who took exception to being penalised, instead thinking they had master-beam position -- right of way -- on the Aussie while jibing under spinnaker.

"It was a poor call by an umpire in a poor position,'' said Bromby immediately after coming ashore following the defeat. "Certainly I had master-beam. I wouldn't have called it if I wouldn't have had it -- and I definitely had it -- and the umpire was definitely not in a position to see it, but that's the way it goes...you win some, you lose some.'' Gilmour, himself admitted that Bromby did have master-beam at the time in question, but it was his location above the Aussie that allowed him to be awarded the penalty.

"Yes, he did have master-beam position, but he was sailing above our course, and it says in the rules that `when a yacht has master-beam she shall be sailing no higher than the other yacht', so it made it an early hail from his point of view,'' said Gilmour, relieved at being able to get past the dangerous Bermudian.

"I think Peter did a good job. He's sailing very well and pretty fast and it's scary racing against him. He can overtake you at any time and he did it several times.'' Bromby had high praise for his crew of Lee White, Penny Simmons and Dennis Correia, who performed almost flawlessly, especially Correia with the spinnaker sets.

"I said the other day that the guys had to polish their act,'' said Bromby.

"They polished it and I think we sailed better than we sailed so far. We just got beaten by a better guy on the day and I think we were hard done by on a penalty call.

"I think the only room for improvement was in myself. The crew did a hundred percent and I got us in a bit of a tight spot a couple of times, so if there was any error it was on my behalf and not theirs.'' Meanwhile, not nearly so epic was the encounter between world number two and twice runner-up Rod Davis of Australia and England's Eddie Warden-Owen, with the former exacting sweet revenge for a 1991 final loss to the Brit.

Davis, yet to lose a race in the competition, rolled to a 3-0 triumph to set up a semi-final encounter against fourth seeded Roy Heiner a 3-1 victor over American Ed Baird, seeded third. The remaining match saw Swede Magnus Holmberg defeat Chris Law 3-2 after being down 2-1 at one stage.

"It was kind of nice to avenge that (loss) wasn't it,'' said Davis, readying to refresh himself with a well deserved Diet Coke. "You try not to worry about your past defeats and dwell on them.

"What happened in '91 was that we went up well ahead of Eddie 3-1 or something and we dropped it all the way down and he battled back. So I was a little bit nervous when we went up two-zero on him. I said `ah, we've seen this movie done before', but we were able to pass him up the windward leg on the last race and make a nice victory out of it.'' However, Davis appeared to be masking a confidence that came from his success in the first and quarter-final rounds where he has appeared almost invincible.

"I think we're sailing well, we feel confident, but we've got a long way to go before we start thinking about winning this regatta. We've just got to take it one race at a time.'' Yesterday also had one flight of the semi-finals sailed, with Davis moving to a 1-0 advantage over Heiner and Holmberg 1-0 up on Gilmour.

The fifth to eighth place round robin finished with Law fifth followed by Warden-Owen, Baird and Bromby.