match racing phase of the World Soling Championships in Murcia, Spain...thus keeping alive their hopes of qualifying for the Sydney Olympics.

The trio are 28th overall, but more importantly sit sixth out of the eight countries that will advance to the match racing after today's final race.

It is from the match racing -- which starts on Monday and involves 14 round robin matches (two against each of seven opponents) from which the top two finishers will qualify for Sydney, along with the third placed team who will be granted a wild card spot.

In the last four races the Bermuda trio have started to come into their own with finishes of 31st, 7th, 11th and 26th which gives them a 40-point cushion on the eighth qualifying spot. Barring a disaster they should move into the next stage of competition.

"Basically all we need to do is avoid another disqualification and we should be in,'' said crew member Nick Jones yesterday. The match racing phase will start on Monday when the first seven matches will be sailed, followed by the final seven on Tuesday. From there quarter-finals and then semi-finals will take place on Wednesday and Thursday with the top two countries booking a passage to the 2000 Games.

"The key when we left Bermuda was to make it into match racing because we have some kind of match racing experience, thanks to the Gold Cup in Bermuda,'' said Jones.

"We have raced against a few of the boats that have qualified and we have beaten some of them before so we know where we stand to a certain point. Adam has match racing experience and that makes him feel confident in that he knows his rules, tactics, techniques and a few countries might be surprised that little Bermuda would have somebody who would be that experienced.

"We started very slowly when we came to the regatta. But we had a team talk and sorted things out.'' Sailor Sara Lane Wright is in Spain continuing her Olympic preparations with a whistle-stop tour of Europe. Wright, who won silver for Bermuda at last year's Pan Am Games sailing in the Laser Radials, has been competing in the Europe class in Barcelona's Olympic Week regatta.

Yesterday, she moved up to eighth in the fleet of 18, after gaining a ninth and two eighths in light to medium winds.

On Thursday, the opening day of the four-day, 12-race series, she earned two ninth-place finishes and a 13th to start yesterday in 10th.

After the regatta concludes on Sunday, Wright will travel to Mallorca for the Princess Sophia regatta, which is expected to attract 100 boats and starts a week tomorrow.

Then, she will travel to Hyeres, France, taking her 90lb boat with her, for another regatta which opens on April 23.

"I've spent a month off the water, so I'm pretty pleased with the results so far,'' said Wright.