America's Cup - Racing abandoned on Day 1 of Semi-Finals

by Richard Gladwell Sail-World.com/nz on 4 Jun 2017 All racing has been abandoned on the first day of the Semi Finals of the Louis Vuitton America's Cup Regatta.

The four remaining teams in the regatta headed out on Bermuda's Great Sound without a great deal of expectation on the prospect of racing. For the spectator fleet sunbathing and swimming the aqua blue waters provided a welcome diversion as they waited for the race clock to count down.

A minimum of 6kts is required for racing, and while the breeze did eventually come in at the level required for racing, it proved to be only a brief visit and Race Director Iain Murray pulled the pin on racing at 15.57hrs with the breeze sitting at 5kts average.

Emirates Team New Zealand looked keen to race, getting up on her foils and almost effected a foiling gybe in the light breeze. The others, Land Rover BAR, Artemis Racing and Softbank Team Japan showed less interest mooching around in displacement mode but occasionally getting up on foils.

It is not known how consistent the breeze was in direction and whether it was stable enough for a course to be laid. One suspects not.

Racing will now be held tomorrow, Monday on a scheduled reserve day. The forecasts is much better with a good breeze promised, before strong winds hit mid-week expected to cause further delay. The Semi-finals will continue until one boat has won five races, and are scheduled to finish on Thursday, with the following day as a spare ahead of the finals.

The uncooperative weather is expected to stick around until Saturday.