It was moving day at the Bermuda Gold Cup with Nick Egnot-Johnson of New Zealand thrusting himself into contention for the semi-finals after posting three wins.

After what by his own admission was a disappointing couple of days, Egnot-Johnson reversed his fortunes with victories over Ian Garreta, of France, Chris Poole, of the United States, and Peter Wickwire, of Canada.

“We had a really tough first couple of days and were really struggling to get used to the boats as we don’t have anything like this back home,” he said.

“There has been a lot of calibration over the past few days but today it feels like it finally started to click and we’re now pretty happy with how we’re sailing going into the final day of round robins.

“Conditions have been very shifty but the guys have been doing a great job of sailing the boat fast and getting the right shifts. We just need to be getting the starts right now.”

While Egnot-Johnson will be sailing for a spot in the semi-finals tomorrow, for one man the pressure is off after another perfect day on the water.

For the second day running, defending champion Johnie Berntsson was the only skipper to remain unbeaten, with his nine victories across three days making his crew the first to book their place in the semi-finals with three races to go.

“The first goal at this regatta is to make it to the semi-finals and against such strong opponents you can never be sure how it will go,” said the Swede.

“It’s good news for us and we will see if we can try to stay on top of the scorecard.

Berntsson’s match against Garreta drew the eyes of those watching from shore, with the boats appearing to be stationary for at least three minutes as Berntsson attempted to stop his opponent from shedding a penalty.

“We were leading but there were two penalties in the pre-start,” he said. “We took one penalty and got back into the race coming from the right side of the course on the second upwind. He needed to take away that penalty and we just tried to stay calm and see how he played the game.

“He didn’t do the move we would have expected and we actually forced the situation to turn into our favour and then managed to get away by about ten boat lengths.”

With Berntsson through to the knockout stages, the final day is shaping up to be a thrilling fight for the final three places, as American Poole, Eric Monnin, of Switzerland, Ian Williams, of Britain, and Garreta all hold hope of progressing.

While he has no chance of reaching the semi-finals it is worth noting the progress of Timothee Rossi, of France. He picked up his first two victories at the regatta and cut a far happier figure than in the previous few days.