Catch the wind

Did someone say moderate?

I may have spoken too soon in earlier post. The wind is up - strong gusts - it's quite puffy and unstable now.

Beautiful day

Tuesday has brought much better sailing conditions to Valencia, with moderate winds, mostly sunny skies and warm temperatures.

The sailing team is hoping to take advantage with a short sail today.

Below is the view from the deck of the team base in Port America's Cup moments ago. In the foreground, two of the hospitality boats sent out on the race course yesterday.

Scenes from the day

Some shots from race day one of the 33rd America's Cup Match.

(Skipper James Spithill, was geared up and ready to go this morning. But here, he waits...)

(Tom Ehman, the GGYC observer on the Race Committee boat. Tom's enjoying some coffee that was shuttled over to the race committee directly from the galley on the Rising Sun)

(The crew gets comfortable during the long wait)

Bedford explains

Team weather guru Chris Bedford (USA) briefed the media when he came of the water this afternoon, and explained what happened on the race course.

“We had a southerly breeze well offshore that was occasionally filtering into the start area. But closer to shore we had a westerly breeze for most of the afternoon. At times it was showing up to 14 knots at the top mark.

“So there was pressure (wind) trying to make it onto the course, but because of these two winds converging, we never had enough breeze over a 20-mile leg to get going… I think the Race Committee did a good job today.”

Chris - a veteran of eight America's Cups - also gave a rough forecast for Wednesday. See more on the main team website here.

A picture is worth a thousand words

The postponement flag - tells the story of the day.

Racing abandoned for the day

We are going to have to wait a couple of days longer for the start of this historic Match.

The Race Committee has just made the decision to abandon racing for the day.

Race One of the 33rd America's Cup will now be on Wednesday, 10 February.

Tough conditions

One of the reports off the water in the last couple of minutes gives the following wind readings:

245° at 6.5 knots at the top mark and 330° at 3.5 knots at the Race Committee boat. So it doesn't look like there's going to be anything happening quickly.

On hold

We're still holding tight, waiting for stable breeze to start racing.

This from earlier this morning from GMR...

First stirrings

There are the first signs of wind - at least in some parts of the race area. Is this the start of something, or will it fade? We're hearing reports of up to 8 knots in some areas, but other parts are down to 2 or 3 knots.