With five flights remaining to determine the semifinalists at the 40th Congressional Cup, today was moving day as skippers and crews jockeyed to be among the top four that will advance to Saturday’s concluding day at the event of the Swedish Match Tour.

After suffering two defeats yesterday, Peter Gilmour regained his form and the overall lead. His Pizza-La Sailing Team won all four matches today to leapfrog yesterday’s leader Gavin Brady. Sailing loose, the Australian skipper is at 11-2 and firmly in control of this event.

“Our boathandling is working for us,” said Gilmour, 44, who trailed in two races that he won. “When we’re behind we just look for the small gains.”

Brady, a two-time winner of the Congressional Cup, stumbled into second after losing two matches to the Nordic duo.

Brady and his Oracle BMW Racing crew lost their first match to Denmark’s Jes Gram-Hansen after leading for much of the race. They failed to cover Gram-Hansen on the run to the finish and lost by 14 seconds. They lost the next race to Sweden’s Mattias Rahm by 40 seconds.

Oracle BMW Racing’s tactician John Kostecki hardly seemed flustered by the happenings. “We didn’t sail well today, we weren’t very smooth. It’s alright to make mistakes in the round robins as long as you get into the semifinals,” Kostecki said.

Brady, Kostecki and crew have a 10-3 record, but 9.5 points due to a penalty yesterday from the on-water umpires.

American Ed Baird made the biggest move of the day. Baird and his Team Musto crew, including tactician Andy Horton, won all four matches and gained sole possession of third place, at 9-4, after being part of a four-way log jam for third yesterday.

“Two of the guys have sailed with me a lot before and three others haven’t,” said Baird. “It took a while to find our comfort level.”

After the top three there is a two-way tie for the fourth semifinal spot between American Terry Hutchinson, the 1992 Congressional Cup winner, and Gram-Hansen. Both skippers were 2-2 on the day, and are tied at 7-6 overall.

Kelvin Harrap (NZL) holds sixth with a 6-7 record, followed by Cameron Appleton (NZL), Mattias Rahm (SWE) and Scott Dickson (USA), who are tied at 5-8. Allan Coutts (NZL) rounds out the field.

Coutts is winless in 13 starts, but is keeping it all in perspective. “The guys are sailing great,” he said of his crew. “I let them down when I gave two races away at the start.”

With five flights scheduled for tomorrow, Hutchinson has the inside track on the fourth spot for the semis. His Team Annapolis Volvo holds the tiebreaker against Gram-Hansen after beating them twice in the round robins.

Hutchinson again lamented lost opportunities today, particularly one against Gilmour. Hutchinson controlled Gilmour in the pre-start of their Flight 10 match and led him toward the line.

Then he saw Gilmour, on his windward quarter, head up to start. Being nervous that Gilmour might gain an advantage, he also turned hard on the wind.

Both crews wound up starting early and had to dip back below the line to clear. Hutchinson turned his head toward the committee boat as he sailed back toward the line to watch for the signal that he was cleared to start.

Hutchinson saw Gilmour’s flag lowered, indicating his opponent was cleared to start, and also saw his flag start to come down. At that point he looked forward as he turned his Catalina 37 upwind.

What Hutchinson didn’t realize was that he hadn’t cleared. Although he saw his flag start to come down, it was re-hoisted due to an error on the committee boat. That forced Hutchinson to return below the line to start properly while Gilmour sailed away.

After losing by 41 seconds, Hutchinson protested to the umpires, claiming that he was materially prejudiced by the flag being lowered. “The race committee said it was halfway lowered,” Hutchinson said.

“We determined that he wasn’t prejudiced,” said Jack Lloyd, the chief umpire from New Zealand.

As with yesterday, the umpires were busy again today. But not nearly as exaggerated yesterday when they said they issued 16 penalties. In reality, it was six penalties. Turns out, one of the skippers played a joke on Lloyd, placing a 1 in front of the 6 on his notes before the press conference.

“We’re thinking of giving Gilly those 10 penalties tomorrow and Saturday,” Lloyd quipped, referring to practical jokester Gilmour.

Even if Gilmour is flagged for a legit penalty or two, he’s confident his crew would be able to overcome the deficits. Their slick maneuvers got him back into two races today in which they trailed.

“We snapped a quick jibe in against Kelvin at the windward mark which allowed us to win that match,” said Gilmour. “Then we hung in there with Cam and he eventually wilted.

“It reminded me of the opening round of the Louis Vuitton Cup in 2002,” Gilmour said, referring to the OneWorld Challenge when they opened challenger racing 8-0. “We probably weren’t the fastest boat but we had the slickest crew work. I like having the best crew work.”

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