involved in the Omega Gold Cup, when he seized the Past Commodores Cup with an emphatic win against Eddie Warden-Owen in the final yesterday at Hamilton Harbour.

After a loss to John Kolius in his first race of a three-flight round-robin series, Baird rebounded for consecutive triumphs over top-ranked Chris Dickson and Paul Cayard before beating Owen, who is the Omega Gold Cup's defending champion.

The race was virtually decided at the start as Baird beat Owen to the left side and continued along that line, managing to create a gap between the two that proved insurmountable. He wound up crossing the finish line a whopping one minute, 22 seconds in front of Owen.

"It was tough sailing today,'' said Baird, who received $500 for his efforts.

"The left side of the course was generally better than the right, but we won one of our races by hitting the right.'' Baird, ranked ninth on the Omega World Match Race rankings, had topped his group with a 2-1 record while Owen was a perfect 3-0, counting Russell Coutts, Marc Pajot and Chris Law as his victims in this inaugural series designed to give the skippers practice heading into the first round of the main event.

Today sees Baird, whose crew includes Bermudian Tony Reaper along with Chris Cantrick and Joe Fordney, paired with Magnus Holmberg of Sweden in a best-of-five series, while Owen's first-round opponent is Germany's Markus Wieser. Results, today's pairings, Page 22.