OLYMPIC gold medallist Shirley Robertson took her husband racing on Sunday to add sparkle to a Hamble Winter Series which has suffered from a lack of stars this season due to the large numbers of professionals away with America's Cup and Volvo campaigns.

Robertson and her husband James Boag helmed different boats in the Hunter 707 class. Shirley competed in Double Trouble owned by Howard Morris while Jamie helmed Nick Robert's infamous contender Three Little Pigs.

And to add extra spice to the competition, each competitor beaten by either Shirley or Jamie in the second race was ordered to pay £10 to the John Merrick's Trust.

Having finished 16th and 9th respectively in the morning, both helms managed to improve in the afternoon.

In the end it was Jamie who came through to take and keep the lead to the line while Shirley finished 11th. The fun added £600 to the trust, a spokesperson for the Hunter 707 Association said after racing.

Racing got off to a bad start when an error made by race setters in the displayed course on the Sportsboat fleets caused the abandonment of the first starts. These were corrected and all classes then completed two races successfully.

There was also some confusion on the Black Course in the IRC 4 and Sigma 33 classes. Navigators & General was designated a port hand (rounding) mark not a passing mark and this has left one or two issues to be resolved in the Protest Room.

Apart from these minor hiccups it was a good day's racing for the vast majority of boats. Nick Haigh, sailing his Farr 40 Too Steamy, won both races ahead of Robbie Cameron-Davies' I-Site, and John Shepherd's Fair Do's V, both Ker 11.3s.

Mike Cover, sailing Basic Cat, had a problem with the ODM at the start of the second race, which prevented him from improving on his first race fourth place.

Louise Athron, sailing the Farr 395 The Great Escape, finished close enough behind Terry Robinson's Swan Assauge to take the IRC 1 class by 23 seconds on handicap.