• Match 1 : Stars&Stripes USA 66 defeats Luna Rossa ITA 74 (35")

Skipper Ken Read and his American crew overtook the Italian boat from the Prada Challenge soon after the start and led around the six-leg course with a 200-yard margin. Stars & Stripes‚ lead at the finish was 35 seconds. Her record in the eight-race First Round Robin of the Louis Vuitton Cup is 2-0.

"For our first race, the crew earned us a win. Today our tactics won the day," Read said. "Our afterguard did a phenomenal job - Terry Hutchinson, Peter Isler and Tom Whidden were just awesome.
They didn’t miss a wind shift all day."

The New York Yacht Club’s challenger crossed the start line at maximum speed with a safe leeward position moments after Luna Rossa, flying the colors of the Yacht Club Punta Ala, made a downspeed start at the committee boat end.

Strong and squally southwest winds had forced the abandonment of racing for two days, but today the boats started under sunny skies in a 18-knot southerly breeze.

Luna Rossa tacked away soon after the gun and for a few minutes neither boat had an advantage. Then the American boat tacked and began to pull out ahead.

"We got a nice left-hand shift right off the line and never looked back," Read said. Stars & Stripes led by 32 seconds at the first weather mark and increased her lead on all but two subsequent legs.

Source Team Dennis Conner

Michele Ivaldi, strategist on board Luna Rossa : "It’s been a pretty interesting race. We had southwesterly winds oscillating both in direction and speed, basically we had all the conditions ranging from 13 to 18 knots and wind shifts up to 20 degrees. The race was decided at the start and the first beat was decisive. We were also quite unlucky with the first shift and that meant that our race started in uphill mode. USA 66 crossed ahead of us in the first converging tack upwind and we all know how difficult it is to fill the gap once you are behind in the first stage of the race. Tomorrow we will race against the French of Le Defi. The wind should be lighter than today, starting at 10 knots and increasing to 15. We hope to have a good race."

Source Prada Luna Rossa

• Match 2 : OneWorld USA 67 defeats Alinghi SUI 64 (10")

OneWorld, the Seattle based challenger for the 2003 America’s Cup, won race two of Round Robin 1 against Swiss challenger, Alinghi, in a very closely contested match. After two consecutive days of postponed races due to strong winds, this afternoon’s race began under clear skies with southerly winds of 15 knots.

Today’s race against the Swiss, with Russell Coutts at the helm of SUI 64, proved to be tough competition for the OneWorld team aboard USA 67. After a strong start by helmsman, James Spithill, USA 67 chose the favored side of the course and gained the advantage on the first leg rounding the first windward mark 22 seconds ahead of SUI 64. The pair remained close through the six leg match with the OneWorld team maintaining the lead finishing 10 seconds ahead of Alinghi.

"It was what we expected out there today. Alinghi is a very tough competitor. We learned a lot and we came out on top, but it was just one day among many," said Charlie McKee, tactician aboard OneWorld.

Source OneWorld Challenge

• Match 3 : Oracle BMW Racing USA 76 bat Mascalzone Latino ITA 72 (2’03")

Second win for the American challenger against an Italian team !

Paolo cian did take the best start but USA 76 took the lead and increases her lead buoy after buoy. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle BMW Racing, even took time to take the helm of his IACC boat to savour leading a Louis Vuitton Cup race and win it !

• Match 4 : Orn SWE 63 bat Le Défi FRA 69 (1’06")

It was one of the matches of the bottom of the rankings. If the French did won, they could have been free of pressure about the qualification for the quarters of finale. This place will then be played against Mascalzone Latino.

The first leg was close but SWE 63 round first mark ahead. Few seconds behind, the big white french spinneker exploded and Areva lose few important seconds. Luc Pillot and Philippe Presti made a good race but never been able to play for the win with the Swedish team.