IT HAS been more than a year now since London property magnate Mike Slade let his sleek new Ocean Leopard loose on the Solent but in that time no one has come up with anything to match her for speed, size and sheer beauty.

Chartered by Skandia Life for the duration of Cowes Week, the 90ft yacht, which was built in Southampton by Green Marine at a cost of £2m, is always the first to finish the course, though with an unfavourable rating, is unlikely to add any booty to the cabinet despite a stream of famous faces on the helm.

On Sunday, Olympic Gold medallist Ben Ainslie was in charge - showing off the new skills that he has acquired since moving from Laser dinghy sailing last September into the ultimate in big boat match racing, the US America's Cup team OneWorld, based in Seattle.

Keeping him company on the helm was Shirley Robertson, one of the "other" sailing gold medallists who is finding her racing expertise more and more in demand among local skippers.

She quietly issued instructions as the aftguard of Ainslie, navigator Hugh Agnew, Slade and regular skipper Chris Sherlock - the other "Shirley" - stood behind her, animatedly exchanging ideas and opinions.

Sometimes these led to confused messages being sent out to the 15-strong crew and manoeuvres were abandoned as new orders were issued. While chaos reigned around her, Robertson never lost her cool showing why she finished her career in the Olympic Europe class as the best in the world.

Yesterday, Ellen Macarthur took the helm.

Today, it is the turn of Iain Percy, the third of the Olympic Gold triumvirate. All of them had a job avoiding the thousands of other boats on the water, ALL of them smaller and some of them, though not all, doffing their caps at Leopard's grandeur.

An exception was an elderly couple in a Moody 44, not competing in the regatta, who stubbornly held their course and refused to make any adjustments despite some frantic waving on the foredeck.

The near miss prompted an ugly incident as skippers of both vessels lobbed insults at one another, the cruising yacht owners claiming the upper ground since they were year-round users of the Solent and therefore entitled to right of way, they shouted pompously.

"That only ever happens in England," sighed one of the many Australian crew on Leopard. Only five crew are employed by Slade all year, the others flying in for the big events such as Skandia Life Cowes Week, The Fastnet and then the event everyone has been waiting breathlessly for, the America's Cup Jubilee.

Slade admits he has little chance of winning any round-the-cans racing but is hopeful of a good showing in the Fastnet having set a new record in the Hoya Round the Island Race earlier this year.

"It is unlikely but not impossible that we could win the Fastnet," said Slade, who will be helming.

"We are optimised for around 10-14 knots of breeze. Bob Miller's Mari Cha 3, who set a new transatlantic record, will also be competing and if it blows more than that, she will beat us easily."

When racing in the Solent is finished for the summer, Slade will send the boat down to the Mediterranean to race in St Tropez then over to the Caribbean where she faces a busy charter season.

Designed to both race and cruise, Leopard will change her spots in November to become a luxury charter yacht, for hire to wealthy families at £25,000 a week.

Her suit of racing sails, which during Cowes week are strewn across the sumptuous saloon and galley, will be stored until Antigua Race week and the crew will become stewards and barmaids for a few months.

After the rigours of racing, the idea of serving gin and tonics in the Caribbean sunshine sounds like the cat's whiskers.