year's Bermuda Gold Cup quarter-final confrontation as sailing resumes after yesterday's rest day.

Brady, unseeded then, lost to number two seed Coutts 3-2 in that encounter, but in a strange turnaround over the last year has risen to number four in the world and is seeded above his compatriot in the competition.

But those standings may be a little misleading since Coutts, four times a winner of the Gold Cup and skipper of Team New Zealand's winning entry in the 1995 America's Cup, has largely been absent from the match-racing circuit over the past 12 months.

Brady booked his berth in the last eight by defeating Bermuda's all-women crew skippered by Paula Lewin in the first championship round on Wednesday after Lewin was fingered as being responsible for a collision between the two boats and disqualified.

Coutts, meanwhile, showed who was boss with a 3-0 victory over his Team New Zealand training partner Dean Barker.

Another intriguing encounter today pairs world number two Chris Law against a third New Zealander, Murray Jones.

Jones, tactician with Coutts in the 1995 America's Cup challenge, is the only non-seed remaining in the draw. But he is developing an affinity for the Gold Cup after finishing in a surprise fourth place last year.

He has risen to 46 in the match-racing rankings in the two years that he has been skippering his own effort and remains an integral part of Team New Zealand's America's Cup 2000 defence.

Law, meanwhile, will be looking to keep on course for a first Gold Cup title -- the only major championship he has never won.

The Briton, who saw off Bermuda's own Glenn Astwood in three straight flights on Wednesday, was a losing finalist in 1995 when Peter Gilmour beat him 3-1 in a drawn-out confrontation and finished third a year later, beating Markus Wieser of Germany in the petit final.

Wieser, who, like Law, wasn't present last year, will face the US Virgin Islands' Peter Holmberg in the quarter-finals.

Both had narrow 3-2 victories over Britons in the first round, Wieser overcoming Andy Beadsworth and Holmberg, Andy Green.

Wieser, in particular, showed his stomach for a battle by fighting back from 2-0 down to win.

The remaining quarter-final matches reigning champion and world number one Peter Gilmour against John Cutler, a New Zealander who is designated helmsman for America True , Dawn Riley's syndicate which will challenge for the America's Cup.

Australian Gilmour beat his up-and-coming compatriot James Spithill to advance to this round, while Cutler was given a fight by Italian Francesco de Angelis who had gone unbeaten in the unseeded rounds.

Yesterday's Margent Aviation Reinsurance Pro-Am regatta was cancelled because of heavy rain. But the company still made a $2,000 contribution to the Bermuda Sailing Association. Managing director David Kinloch noted: "The students of CedarBridge Academy are the beneficiaries of this support as it was three members of the school community who participated in sailing programmes last summer funded by the BSA.''