Olympic gold medallist Shirley Robertson was back in the fray yesterday helming her sportsboat, the Cork 1720 sponsored by Skandia Life.

Robertson, who helmed Skandia Life's other boat the 90ft Leopard for two days earlier in the week, finished second according to provisional results behind Stewart Hawthorne's YachtsandYachting, another Cork 1720.

"We did not break anything today which was amazing," said Robertson, who was seen in the Cowes Haven sailmakers first thing collecting a repaired mainsail.

"It's great when you get a blast like this in the Solent especially when you are on a sportsboat and we are hoping for more of the same - after discards, we could still win."

But her day was to go badly wrong when the final results were confirmed. They showed that Robertson went outside the mark on the Squadron start line and was deemed not to have raced.

Her Olympic colleague Iain Percy, took advantage of Leopard's decision not to sail yesterday to leap on to the J120 Jazolo, owned by Robert Shaw. He steered it to a provisional third in Class 10 IRC Bowsprit.

Ben Ainslie was at the helm of the Corel 45 Serano, which came ninth in Class 0 and finished 20 places behind the winner in the Britannia Cup.

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