Emirates Team New Zealand win preliminaries

But James Spithill's Oracle Racing is the class act on day one of the America's Cup World Series

There was something of an embarrassing start to the new era of the America’s Cup today. The AC45 solid wingsail catamarans, dubbed ‘the boats that can sail in any conditions’, aimed at putting an end to the delays that have dogged past America’s Cups (and in particular the damaging effect they have on sailing's credibility as a sport suitable for live TV), started out their competitive careers at the AC World Series in Cascais, Portugal...with a one hour delay.

The sun, blue skies and solid breeze, that have featured over the past weeks as many of the team’s have been training here, gave way to a general greyness, light drizzle and high pressure that all but killed the wind. ‘It’s not normally like this, etc’ muttered some, as others wittily observed it was good training for when the America’s Cup World Series visits Plymouth next month.

With the most under rehearsed team - Green Comm - joining the racing today after missing yesterday's practice racing, so nine AC45s were on the start line and the biggest surprise, when the first race did get underway, was that the race favourite, winning helmsman from the 33rd America’s Cup, Oracle Racing’s James Spithill, was penalised for not being inside the start zone with two minutes to spare and then after being first to the reaching mark, was disqualified by the umpires for failing to carry out his penalty in time (penalties in the new era of the America’s Cup are not turns, but the penalised boat must slow down by two boat lengths, or until the umpires see fit – this is communicated from umpires to the crew on board digitally). Spithill later admitted that there had been a problem with his screen on board.

With Spithill out of the way, Terry Hutchinson and Artemis continued on after the reaching mark in pressure, as others gybed, the Swedish team moving into the lead which they held, completing the first ever AC45 race ahead of the Loick Peyron-steered Energy Team and Emirates Team New Zealand.

After their disappointing first race, James Spithill’s Oracle Racing boat went on to show their true prowess, comfortably winning both today’s second and third races. In the second, the lightest of the three, Spithill, sailing as ever alongside his AC33 winning tactician John Kostecki, was once again first to the reaching mark ahead of Emirates Team New Zealand. While Spithill looked comfortable out in front, covering the Kiwis on the upwinds, despite this being a costly manoeuvre in a lightweight catamaran, the remaining podium positions were fought out between Emirates Team New Zealand, Artemis and Russell Coutts' Oracle Racing, boat in both the final two races today with the Kiwis taking second in both, giving them victory overall in what we are supposed to call ‘the Preliminaries’, one point ahead of Artemis which posted a 1-4-3.

In the light conditions, which reached a maximum of just 6 knots in the third race – the first time today the boats could fly their weather hulls – most of the crews were finding their way a bit, as none of the teams, even some of the longest established in the AC45s, have had much opportunity to train in super light conditions. Today we were seeing crew on naturally stern-down AC45s move their weight as far forward as possible and we were seeing different sails being used on the big teams –Emirates Team New Zealand for example were using a higher aspect jib compared to the low centre of effort with a flat top affair they were using in the fruiter conditions yesterday.

Unlike yesterday in the practice race when the boats were typically two sail reaching off the start to the reaching mark, several teams were unfurling their gennikers well before they had arrived at the reaching mark. However this didn’t seem to affect Spithill’s Oracle Racing AC45 which seemed comfortable two sail reaching into the first mark in today's final race.

As suspected, the ‘big teams’, those which have been sailing their AC45s the longest, have come out on top today. Among the second division the Chris Draper-steered Team Korea came out on top, two points ahead of Energy Team (that never quite looked so flash after their second place in the first race) and the Mitch Booth-steered China Team. But the surprise performance of the day came from the ‘very green’ Olympic sailors aboard Green Comm Racing, who have had the least training in the AC45s, yet at one point during the final race were up to third, although they ultimately finished 7th.

Tomorrow we are expecting Cascais to return to more normal wind conditions. Oddly just one 'long fleet race' is scheduled - by long we mean 40 minutes as opposed to today's 20 minute races. However fortunately we will also see the 'speed trials' that were to scheduled for today, where each teams gets to have three runs down a 500m race track, but which for obvious reason had to be delayed.

More images from Ian Roman of www.ianroman.com