Update from San Francisco

A tough day on the water for the race committee. With a very unstable wind today in Valencia, only the North course was able to race. Areva, Shosholoza, China and +39 are done with RR1, while BMW Oracle, Luna Rossa, Mascalzone Latino, Desafio Espanol, Team New Zealand and Victory Challenge still have two more races to do tomorrow.

While the big match ups at the top of the leader board are left for tomorrow, today’s racing on the North Course was very exciting. In the first flight of the day, China team did not race all day as they are making repairs to their hull following yesterdays damage so +39 picked up their first win in Round Robin 1 as they had no opponent. Areva beat Germany in a match that included two lead changes and some confusion from the umpires on a penalty call, but in the end the French played the shifts better and won easily. In the second flight +39 and Germany had a good tussle which saw the Italian team come through on the last run for one of their two wins this round. In the last match of the day, Areva with the lead but a penalty to execute, seemingly had enough distance to get the win but hit the pin end of the finish line and gave the victory to Shosholoza.

The bottom of the leader board for Round Robin 1 will finish as this:

8 FRA 93 Areva Challenge – 9

9 ITA 85 +39 Challenge – 6

10 GER 89 United Internet Team Germany – 3

11 CHN 95 China Team – 1

The flights are set in such a way that the teams meet their closest rivals on the leader board in the last two flights of a round. This made fore exciting racing today on the north course but of course will be even more important and exciting on tomorrow where the fight for the all important top four will take place.