Cup away from Bermudian favourite Peter Bromby during a climactic finale to International Race Week.

Delving into his bag of tricks, Bromby could not find the magical ending he desperately sought and Shore proved the superior wizard, using his own brand of heroics for a half-point victory.

A masterful come-back from deep in the International One Design (IOD) fleet on the final leg earned the American his first overall championship, and second title of the week -- Shore earlier won the `A' series.

The tone of the race was set early when Bromby and Shore got tied up just after the start, with the former forced to do a penalty turn.

Bromby recovered from this mishap to stand seventh at the first windward mark.

But while he surged through the field, Shore began to flounder, dropping from fourth to 10th heading in and it looked as though Bromby might avoid surrendering the trophy.

Shore, though, found a good line on the left side of the course and when he crossed the line fourth, had done just enough to erase memories of several near misses in previous years....most because of Bromby.

"Some races are pretty races...this was certainly not a pretty race,'' said Shore following his triumph. "We were in deep trouble in the middle of the race and everybody kept their head. We poked our nose out and caught some boat speed and it was good enough to win.'' Taking race honours on the day was another US sailor, Ken Drewry, who placed third overall, but his brilliant effort was lost in the shadows of Bromby and Shore's battle.

Afterwards Bromby remained upbeat, although he was unable to capture any silverware this week, and felt that the championship was more or less decided a day previous, during races two and three of the `B' Series.

"Most of the problems were that I didn't sail well off the line all week and that cost us at the end,'' said Bromby, a five-time winner. "I think the crew pulled me out of plenty bad situations I had put them in and did a good job.

"We needed to beat Bill Shore in one of those races (on Thursday) and he beat us in both of them, that was the turning point and really stacked the cards against us going into today (Friday).

"The plan today was to go out and get in control of Bill, try and put him as far back as I could without jeopardising one of the first two spots. But suddenly we had to re-adjust our plan in a hurry when we fouled.'' Giles Peckham topped the Norwegian Series `B' by placing comfortably in third place, thus denying Shore a treble.

The Britons excelled the latter part of the week after struggling early on, not even placing among the top five in the `A' Series.

"We were very pleased to progressively improve throughout the week, and to finish the regatta like that was beyond expectation and certainly quite a fight,'' said Peckham. "It took excellent team work, keeping calm and just trying to enjoy ourselves, rather than get too excited.

"We were looking to improve on our performance from four years ago, which was the last time we actually sailed IODs, so we've been a bit rusty. We wanted to show improvement and to get a few guns, that's all.'' Bermuda's Tim Patton, with the Etchells 22 series already sewn up entering the proceedings, elected to run the final race and completed a string of four consecutive first-place finishes.

It was a far cry from last year, when he placed fifth overall, and for his efforts Patton will receive the K.F. Trimingham Trophy.

Second was the team of Henry Kyhl and Randy Bartholomew, while Robert Kinney claimed third.

IT'S FINALLY OURS -- Skipper Bill Shore gives his crewman a congratulatory pat on the back after as they cross the finish line yesterday and capture the IOD championship.