Peter Bromby and Lee White's Olympic medal hopes appeared to have been washed overboard early today when disaster struck in race nine of the Star Class regatta.

Early reports suggested the Bermuda boat was involved in an incident on the start line and was forced out of the race before even reaching the first mark.

Bromby and White immediately hoisted a protest flag but a ruling was unlikely to be made until after press time.

In the meantime, they have been hit with a dreaded DNF (Did Not Finish) which carries an automatic penalty 17 points.

If that score stands, their medal hopes will have virtually sunk.

Having finished seventh in race eight earlier in the day, the two Bermudians were just one point out of the bronze medal position.

But the DNF dropped them to seventh overall on 49 points -- 17 behind leaders Great Britain (32).

Bromby setback With just two races remaining -- one more today and another tomorrow -- Brazil were in second place on 36, USA third (41), Spain fourth (44), Australia fifth (45) and New Zealand sixth (48).

At press time last night (1 a.m.) there was still no word on the start line incident.

Star Class racing was taking place on the furthest course out in Sydney Harbour with organisers attempting to squeeze in three races for the day leaving just the finale for Saturday.

Closed circuit television relaying footage of all the Olympic class races back to sailing's main press centre showed no sign of the Bermuda boat on the Star course.

If there was any consolation for Bermuda it was that two of their rivals, Brazilians Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira, and Australians Colin Beashel and David Giles also suffered their worst results of the week in race nine.

Brazil placed 12th and Australia 13th in a race won by the Netherlands, who moved up to eighth overall.

Earlier in race eight, Bromby and White had recovered brilliantly from a poor start, placing seventh at the finish after rounding the first mark in 13th.