Winds steady at 25 knots with gusts to 35 caused the cancellation of America's Cup racing action on October 21 in Auckland, New Zealand.
Three days of racing have been completed with two days of light air, then fresh 20 knot breezes on October 20. Yet, with 11 boats competing in this one-on-one format for the right to challenge for the America's Cup, there are still three undefeated teams.
The 'Big Three' are AmericaOne from San Francisco, The Prada Challenge from Italy, and Young America from the New York Yacht Club. These three teams were ranked in that order by ESPN and Sailing World magazine before the start of Round One due to the amount of training, money, and skills they have amassed before the start of the first race.
In this first few days some boats have shown considerable speed difference in different wind speeds, and others seem to have advantages on up wind or down wind legs of the course. As the teams fine tune their high tech racing craft and top flight crews, some of the 'Other Eight' may start knocking to the door of the 'Big Three Club.'
Team Dennis Conner, with Virgin Islander Peter Holmberg, has won 3 of 5 races and looks to be working into a position as one of the best of the rest. The same can be said of AmericaTrue, with Virgin Islander Ben Beer aboard. The match up of these two teams will now be on Oct. 22.
This first round is considered a warm up by most of the teams. The point structure is set up to increase the value of winning with each round. The first round of 55 races is set to conclude October 23, however there is room in the schedule to make up the canceled races on following days.
