Team Dennis Conner won a hard fought race over the British GBR syndicate by 20 seconds.
The American boat held the lead throughout the race but every time Stars and Stripes looked as if it might pull away, GBR came back at it, closing to within six seconds at the fifth mark.
Four races were held on the first day of competition in shifty southwesterly winds, mostly between 12 and 15 knots.
Stars and Stripes skipper Ken Read said the Americans welcomed the chance to sail against another boat -"we haven't had that for more than a month".
"We had stayed by ourselves and worked on a lot of our little issues.
"Essentially we thought of ourselves as a one boat programme and we did not want to take any chances of damaging the only good boat we had at the time. But our new boat is going in the water today," he said.
GBR challenge skipper Ian Walker said "we kept coming back at them but Stars and Stripes sailed a fantastic race".
He said on the fourth leg he had a split second decision to make - whether to try and take the inside or whether to go above them - "it would have been really high risk to go inside - we sailed pretty defensively all race".
"Our game plan was not to be too aggressive - just to keep asking questions of the opposition in the hope they would make a mistake - and Stars and Stripes did not make any mistakes.
" .....so our game plan was not good enough today," Walker said.
"It was very disappointing not to start with a win."
"But at least we have a boat we know we can go and have a good race with - that's what we asked our designers for. We have got to hope we are on the pace according to other teams and if so there will be a lot more close racing," Walker said.
Weather: Wind from S-SW, 10-15 knots, increasing to 15-20 knots. Cloudy sky with scattered showers.
- NZPA
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Racing schedule, results and standings
Conner scrapes through ahead of GBR
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