Light winds plague racing again

 For the second day running, racing was abandoned in Louis Vuitton Cup round robin one. Although a mainly cloudless sunny day, the sea breeze failed to materialise and racing was called off at 1630.

This leaves the organisers with a potentially difficult situation as it means that two of the two and a half reserve days will now be used up. Should more than another half day be lost in this round robin the organisers will have the unusual situation that they will have to run some of the round robin one races during round robin two. It sounds an organisational nightmare.

Valencia was chosen as the venue for the 32nd America’s Cup because of the reliability of its afternoon sea breezes, although it is still too early in the season for these to be reliable. However, as ACM Media Director Marcus Hutchinson told me, during the last Auckland Cup 40% of races were lost through too much or too little wind.

One boat that did sail today was the South African Shosholaza pictured here. This clearly shows just how narrow this latest version of the AC class has become.