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Conditions on Monday were excellent for racing, with sea breezes of up to 15 knots on both race courses. The wind eased later in the day, but never dropped below 9 knots. It was a day of close racing and surprise finishes at the Louis Vuitton Cup where the bottom ranked China Team earned its first win of the competition over the leader, BMW ORACLE Racing, when the American team lost its headsail on the first upwind leg.

Few would have expected BMW ORACLE Racing, leader after Round Robin One, to fall to the bottom ranked boat, China Team. But after showing better speed in the pre-start and early up the first beat, the headsail pulled out of the headfoil on the American boat. The BMW ORACLE Racing team eventually solved the problem and raised a genoa for the second upwind leg, but by then the deficit was too great, and China Team picked up an unexpected two points. 

That wasn’t the only upset of the form guide however.

The French Areva Challenge, disappointed with its Round Robin One performance, went out and won its first two matches of Round Robin Two, while +39 Challenge suffered two devastating losses in matches that were desperately close right up until the finishing line. Against the Desafio Español in their first flight of the day was probably one of the closest races of the whole event. After taking the lead with some good manouvering and turning the first bouy with 23  seconds lead and extending it to 29 seconds at the leeward gate. By the time they reached the top mark for the second time they were down to a precarious 9 second difference, which proved not enough as the spanish boat was able to push past with some clever sailing, stealing the wind and managing to cross the line with 1 second to spare.

Later in the afternoon the two remaining races from yesterdays first flight managed to be completed and the current standings are as follows: