Peter Ogden looks set to continue an outstanding year after he and his pink-shirted crew on Spirit of Jethou eased to an impressive win in the big boat class at Skandia Life Cowes Week yesterday.

Confronted by strong gusts of up to 32 knots, the fleet struggled to keep gear intact and the numbers of boats retiring with lost masts and booms and blown sails exceeded 150 from a starting field of 880.

For Ogden's Swan 60 Spirit of Jethou, which last year won the New York Challenger Cup, and followed it up in the spring with a class win in RORC's Red Funnel race and victory in the Cowes to St Malo race.

Now the London businessman, a director of the computer business Computacenter, is making an impression in the hotly-contested Class 0.

"We did a big refit earlier this year, polishing the bottom and increasing the tension in the rig and it seems to have paid off because we are having a very good year," said helmsman Ogden, who says he is under pressure from his crew to trade up next year to a new Swan 70.

"We are much faster - our acceleration coming off the start line is much quicker than last year. Our boat speed is good and our crew work is good and so far we have not made too many mistakes. If we carry on, we have a chance of winning."

Behind Spirit of Jethou on corrected time was the Farr 52, Bear of Britain crewed by an amateur team. The Mills designed Yes!, skippered by Adam Gosling pulled off a surprise third place with the 12 metre America's Cup boat Australia II which won the Cup in 1983, sneaking in 24 seconds behind.

Each day since Thursday when she was put in the water for the first time, Australia II has steadily improved her performance and despite the strong winds was able to complete the course though other America's Cup boats, Johnny Caulcutt's IACC boat High Voltage and Richard Matthew's 12-metre Crusader were both forced to retire, both owners anxious to prevent gear failure before the start of the America's Cup Jubilee.

In Class 1, Tony Mack's McFly came in first to win the Sir Walter Preston Challenge Cup but second placed Charles Dunstone's Nokia, the pre-regatta favourite, was back to her best after making an average start to the week.

Crewman Matthew Lees said a series of problems had affected their performance in the first three days of racing.

"We had a new rudder put in on Wednesday and the rudder sleeve slid off the bearing so on Saturday it was moving and on Sunday, it fell off.

"The boat is better in medium and light airs and it has been pretty windy this week so we are hoping it calms down a bit. If it does, we would like to think we can still win after discards," he said.

The Ker 11.3ms which created much excitement at the start of the week suffered damage in the strong winds with reports of broken booms and lost spinnakers.