when he overwhelmed Australia's Rod Davis in the final of the $80,000 Omega Gold Cup yesterday in Hamilton Harbour.

Showing that he is indeed the master of match racing, Coutts ended the week with a perfect record of 12 wins in as many races, including the 3-0 trouncing of Davis. In fact he ran his record to 14 straight victories, counting last year.

Following this latest triumph, which came on the heels of a similar victory at the World Match Racing Championships and netted him $30,000, the ever-modest skipper attributed much of the success to his three-man crew of Simon Daubney, Warwick Fleury and Larry Klein for their fine work and expressed surprise at the margin of victory.

"I think my team is the reason why (we won),'' said Coutts, who earned the right to raise the King Edward VII Trophy for a third time. "We were very pleased with our effort today.

"It's not the way I would have predicted before-hand, but we're certainly pleased to have it in three straight.

"I think that this is a very good regatta, a lot of good sailors all very much keen, so you've seen some great sailing out there.'' The challenge by Davis had an inauspicious beginning as he was tagged with a penalty at the start of race one after refusing to grant leeway to Coutts, situated to windward and having right of passage.

Nevertheless, the transplanted American led at the first windward mark by four boat lengths, an advantage he maintained through the downwind leg.

Still Coutts battled back. Utilising favourable shifts found along the right side of the course, he recouped the deficit and held on to the finish despite efforts by his opponent to the contrary.

Race two was a similarly close affair that had Coutts lead most of the way and in the end cruise to a 16 second victory.

What turned out to be the final outing may have been the most exciting. Davis, at least for a while appeared in firm control, after putting together a masterful downwind leg to gain a sizable lead, only to throw it away upwind.

After an even start, Coutts made the turn first closely followed by Davis.

Both crews worked frantically heading to leeward, with Davis jibing over in an attempt to take the wind out of his opponents sails and Coutts combating this with several tactical manoeuvres of his own.

Davis prevailed and gained the upper hand at the mark. He further pulled away as the duo exchanged tacks upwind and, with a five length lead appeared set to resend Coutts to his first loss.

Then came a fatal error of judgment as Davis chose not to cover Coutts during the next beat to windward and saw his lead evaporate as Coutts surged ahead at the mark and sailed to victory...and the championship.

"As we were ahead a little bit I was pretty comfortable that we could set up on the other side of him and that's what we did. As soon as we had done that we lost about half our lead,'' explained Davis, who pocketed $15,500.

"It's like when you grab the little tab on a jumper and start undoing back and forth and all of a sudden he was ahead of us.

"It was one of those calls you have to make in yacht racing. You have to have the confidence in your ability to read wind-shifts when it's shifty and be able to play your own game and I think that's the way it goes sometimes.'' In the day's petit final to decide the third and fourth place finishers American Ed Baird defeated world number two Peter Gilmour of Australia 3-0.

Gilmour paid the price for his extreme aggression as he was penalised five times in three races and failed to complete either one.

Baird had a day earlier been beaten by Coutts in the semifinals, while Gilmour similarly lost out to Davis.

Scott McLeod of organisers Sail Sports International hailed this year's regatta as a success and had high praise for the participants.

"I think we were really lucky this year to have these guys and the cream definitely rose to the top to have these four individuals in the semifinals and then the great final today.

"My hats off to them for putting on a good show.'' UNBEATABLE -- Russell Coutts and crew are shown on their way to a third Omega Gold Cup championship, his second consecutive, yesterday. Pictured from left, Simon Daubney, Larry Klein and Coutts.