KEY POINTS:
Rod Davis has made a strong start to his defence of the New Zealand Match-Racing Champs, coming through the opening day of the regatta unbeaten.
The yachting veteran, who was the surprise winner of last year's event, won all five of his round robin match-ups in light conditions on the Waitemata Harbour yesterday.
However Davis is yet to meet the likes of Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker and triple Olympic gold medallist Ben Ainslie, who are expected to be his closest rivals for the crown.
Barker is also unbeaten after the opening day, although the four-time winner had one less race than Davis yesterday, having had a bye round.
Ainslie, who will skipper Team Origin in next year's Louis Vuitton Pacific Series, has one blip on his record after losing to Laurie Jury in the second race of the day.
Both Ainslie and Jury are among a cluster of sailors sitting on three wins.
Also bunched on three wins is young sailor Jess Smyth.
The 22-year-old and her all-female crew emerged as potential dark horses in the regatta, winning three of their five races yesterday, including a thrilling six second win over the highly fancied Adam Minoprio. All of Smyth's victories were by narrow margins, having scraped past Adrian Short by 10 seconds in flight one, and Josh Junior by 13 seconds in the final race of the day.
Teams had to contend with a strong tide and wind shifts of between 10-15 degrees which meant that if the difficult conditions were read correctly, the crews were able to extend their lead or close the match right up.
The round robin matches will be completed today with the finals being held on Sunday.
