America's Cup: Frustrating day for Team New Zealand with racing abandoned

It's been a frustrating day on the water for Team New Zealand, with day five of the America's Cup qualifiers abandoned due to light winds in Bermuda.

The Kiwi team were due to take on British team Ben Ainslie Racing in today's second round robin match-up, but with the average wind strength peaking at just 5.4 knots during the two-hour racing window, organisers were unable to get any races away.

Today's races have now been pushed forward to tomorrow, which was originally scheduled as a lay day.

Emirates Team New Zealand cyclor Andy Maloney said it was a long day of hanging about on the water of the Great Sound, but weather enforced delays just come with the territory of the sport.

"It was pretty soft, for a while there it was sort of hovering around 4-5 knots, so it was just off the wind limit and then it slowly died as the day went on," he said.

The weather delay at least gave Team NZ the opportunity to practice staying switched on for racing when the schedule is thrown into a state of flux.

Challenger fleet becalmed by light winds, racing postponed

"On a day like today we just go through our normal routines, so we have a good warm-up in the gym before we head out on the water and we go out there and treat it as if we are going to do a race on schedule," said Maloney.

"We do our normal warm-up out on the water and then sit in the pin the same time at the start as we normally would and just expect to race."

"They just kept delaying the racing, delaying the racing and we sort of chill out for a while and just have a bit of banter on the boat, and then get back into it by going for a free sail for a while and keeping the legs warm and keeping everybody switched on."

Team NZ may get further practice dealing with weather delays tomorrow, with light winds again forecast on the Great Sound. While the conditions look marginal, organisers are hopeful the wind will pick up later in the day