NZME's sailing professor Mark Orams provides the briefing for day five of racing
The PredictWind forecast for the America's Cup course area is for much lighter winds and from a different direction on Day 5 with 6-9 knots from the north east. This is the first time we will have seen this wind direction during the series and with such light wind speeds it will be a tricky day for all the competitors racing (Artemis has the day off).
Generally speaking the lighter the wind speed, the less stable it is. The day is also going to be warm with air temperatures forecast to reach 26 degrees C during the afternoon. When it is this warm and with low wind speed, air can rise off the surface of the water and leave big holes with very little wind. Fall into one of these and you do not have enough power to foil and you can sit in a parking lot while your opponent foils away from you.
In sailing terms we would call this a "head out of the boat day", meaning that your focus needs to be on what the wind is doing and positioning your boat to avoid the lulls and take advantage of the puffs rather than focusing your attention on sailing the boat fast. The challenge on these AC50s is that you only have 6 crew onboard and they are all so busy "getting your head out of the boat" is really difficult.
So, expect some random things to happen on Day 5, sometimes the wind Gods can be cruel, sometimes they can be kind. Let's hope Tangaroa can find his way to the Great Sound in Bermuda and help Team NZ out!
Key match up is Team Oracle USA versus their training partner Softbank Team Japan. Will Team Japan have the good kit on, or is that all reserved for Oracle?
For the first time since Day 1 of this series we could potentially have a delay to racing. The rules for this regatta require an average wind speed of 6 knots for over 3 minutes at the start area. It could be marginal to achieve this.
The race schedule is as follows:
Race 4: JPN vs FRA
Race 5: GBR vs NZL
Race 6: USA vs JPN
Race 7: FRA vs GBR
