It was challenging day for the Race Committee at the Louis Vuitton Cup on Friday, when the gradient Easterly breeze flirted around the seven knot lower limit for racing for much of the afternoon. On the northern most course racing started on time in nine knots of wind and the two scheduled matches in both Flights 10 and 11 were completed.
It was a different story for the matches scheduled on the southern race area, where the wind was never suitable for racing. The race officials brought the Juliet race course up to the north race area, but the wind was no better and Matches 4, 5 and 6 were postponed for the day. The remaining matches in Flight 10 and Flight 11 are now scheduled for Saturday.
That means the top six teams on the leaderboard all have critical matches left to sail to complete Round Robin One. The matches that were raced on Friday were important for the bottom teams on the ranking, and no less exciting for that. +39 Challenge had a great day, earning its first four points of the regatta, while the French Areva Challenge suffered a heartbreaking setback in its match against Shosholoza, the Umpires judging it didn't execute its penalty turn properly at the finishing line, allowing the South Africans to win the race.
