America's Cup Replay - Teams vote with their feet on Day 5
by Richard Gladwell 31 May 2018 18:37 PDT
1 June 2018
Oracle team USA - wait for the wind - Round Robin2, America's Cup Qualifier - Day 5, May 31, 2017 (ADT) © Richard Gladwell
The five teams due to sail on Day 5 of the 35th America's Cup all but pulled left the Race Course on the Great Sound before the signal was made to move the planned racing to the planned rest day, tomorrow.
Although there was wind around noon today, sufficient for the Red Bull Youth America's Cup catamarans to be foiling during their Practice Session, the breeze lightened as the day progressed.
Racing had to be concluded at 1700hrs local time, meaning that the latest a race good start was about 1630hrs.
As the waters of the Great Sound too on an increasing glassy sheen, the inevitable became obvious around 1545hrs when the teams started to edge towards the marina in expectation of the racing to be called off.
Defending Champion Oracle Team USA were the first off the course and into the crane, followed by Groupama Team France, Land Rover BAR and Emirates Team New Zealand.
The forecast for tomorrow (Thursday) is even worse with Friday being much the same. Today had the strongest breeze forecast of the three days.
Saturday, the last day of Round Robin 2 is expected to be sailable, at this stage it is not clear what officials will do to clear the 12 races that are due to be sailed, if today and the next two days are lost.
The points table remains tight at for the 'cellar dwellers' - the three teams at the bottom of the table all with two points.
They have all sailed an uneven number of races, and one of the teams here must be eliminated before the Semi Final round gets underway on Sunday with four races to be sailed.