America's Cup: Regatta director Iain Murray optimistic for sailing despite light wind

Regatta director Iain Murray described the America’s Cup as being in the ‘epicentre of nothing’ for Sunday’s racing, with the forecast saying wind will be light and variable.

The action, if there is any, will be back on Course A on Sunday, with the hope that an easterly wind will come in.

There were intentions that Course C, otherwise known as the Stadium Course, could be used this weekend, with Auckland in alert level one.

Unfortunately though the weather gods haven’t come to the party so the boats will head out to Course A, which was where both of Saturday’s races took place.

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Murray said if he was just looking at the computer software, he wouldn’t be optimistic about racing on Sunday, but he felt the chances were better than 50/50.

“We’re sort of the epicentre of nothing today,” Murray said.

“There is plenty of wind around the outside, nice south easterly trade winds ripping down either side of the country, but not in our backyard.

“Tomorrow it suggests there will be reasonable breeze on the racecourses, but today we’ve elected to go for a rerun of yesterday and hope that the models aren’t picking up the macro sea breeze that’s starting now.

“With the heat of the day and the clear skies, there’s a bit of confidence we’re going to get that 7-10 knots around.”

There have been a number of days during the Prada Cup and America’s Cup Match where the morning prediction would be that there wasn’t enough of a breeze for racing, only for it to go ahead as scheduled later in the day.

“I guess that’s part of the reason that I’m here,” Murray said.

“There is probably some confidence that I can actually read it from 50 years of sailing experience, that there might actually be a chance of weather.

“The courses we’ve selected today don’t align with the models, it’s really my gut feeling, which is pretty much what it was yesterday.”

While there is some doubt about racing on Sunday, there should be no such problem on Monday with one model Murray has looked at showing 18 knots. If it does get up to that, it should change the dynamics of this series as it would be the first time the boats haven’t raced in light air.

There were around 1600 spectator boats out on Course A on Saturday, as Kiwis made the most of the nice weather to enjoy this close series.

“Seeing that number of boats out there is very satisfying for the event I would think, it’s great that the New Zealand public are supporting the event in the way they are,” Murray said.

“Their behaviour was fantastic and the good thing yesterday was that once we had a reasonable indication of where the breezes was, we were able to move them in, in an orderly way so that they were closer to the racecourse.”

Meanwhile, Murray said there won’t be a lay day for the remainder of the regatta.

For the teams to have a day off, they both needed to agree to it, but it’s understood only one of the teams wanted this to happen, so they will be out there every day until someone gets to seven wins.