An eventful week's sailing is set to culminate in a thrilling final day of racing at Skandia Life Cowes Week today with 25 of the 34 class titles still up for grabs.

Strong winds kicked in late during the afternoon yesterday to lighten some gloomy faces among the big boat skippers who were becoming frustrated by the length of the course and the lack of an adequate engine in the form of a decent breeze to drive them speedily towards the finish line.

But the final beat which took Class 0 on a long course through the Eastern Solent allowed a few dawdlers to pull back some time.

"At Yarmouth, we were the real dog-end charlies," said Spirit of Jethou skipper Peter Ogden who posted his worst result of the week, finishing in tenth place but still leads the class overall.

"But we managed to get up past Yes! and a few others on the last beat so we're quite happy though we did not have a great day overall - not one of our best. We tacked away from virtually every shift - it was just one of those days."

Ogden, who will leave Cowes later today by helicopter and head off to his private island Jethou in the Channel Islands, is set to win overall honours in his Class after a week of consistently strong performances in conditions that suited his big heavy Swan perfectly.

Only one boat can beat Spirit of Jethou but Peter Harrison's Farr 52 Chernikeeff 2 must come first today and Ogden fifth or worse for the Swan 60 to lose.

It was Chernikeeff 2 who won Class 0 for the second time in three days and should finish the fastest of the three Farr 52s for the week.

Harrison recruited his navigator from GBR Challenge Julian Salter, regarded as the Solent's best tactician, to assist him for the past three days, a decision that paid off handsomely.

"We won two and came third in the other so it has been quite good," said Salter who was born and brought up in Cowes.

"They had a few problems earlier in the week with breakages but have come good towards the end. The Farr 52s are very powerful - they are good in all sorts of conditions especially when the breeze is up. When it is breezy downwind, you just take off and surf which is great fun."

Salter, who joins Skandia Leopard for the Fastnet Race starting on Sunday, praised the race officers for a good course.

"There was a lot of cross tide beating which was good because it allowed us to overtake and there was some good tight tacking down the shore past Yarmouth, which was unusual and challenging."

Class leaders apart, all eyes were on the three 12-metre America's Cup yachts, which were jostling for position in Class 0. Australia II, which for the second time had 1983 Cup winning helmsman John Bertrand in the driving seat, proved the fastest of the three and Lymington-based Italia, which had former British America's Cup helmsman Chris Law on the helm came in ahead of Crusader, the 1987 British challenger, which was helmed by Law's original skipper Harold Cudmore.