America's Cup: Team NZ must wait to take on Sir Ben Ainslie in challenger playoffs

Light winds force delays at the America's Cup defender series off Bermuda. Photo/America's Cup

Team New Zealand will have to wait until tomorrow to kick off their assault on the challenger semifinals, with racing on the opening day of the America's Cup playoffs abandoned for the day, due to light winds in Bermuda.

The teams endured a frustrating afternoon on the water waiting for the breeze to fill in, but the average wind strength never met the minimum requirement of six knots for racing.

Today's programme has now been moved to tomorrow's reserve day, which is looking much more promising for racing, with winds of around 10-14 knots forecast.

Team NZ opted to take on Brits in the first-to-five semifinal series, while Artemis and Team Japan will face off for the other spot in the final. Each semifinal pairing has two races scheduled today.

To get a race underway, the average wind speed in the start box needs to stay above six knots during the five-minute sampling window of between eight and three minutes before the scheduled start time. But today, the wind peaked at just 5.7 knots.

It meant Team NZ did not get the opportunity to demonstrate their speed advantage in the light air.

"Whilst we tried hard to race, we unfortunately had to postpone the four races planned for Sunday until Monday, because the winds simply didn't reach the required six knot strength.

"This is how it is sometimes in sailing - here in Bermuda, we have been spoilt for action so far and today was just one of those days."

Today's weather delay could be just the beginning of a stop-start week of action, with the conditions later in the week set to test the upper end of the wind limit.

Regatta director Iain Murray said the conditions later in the week look "pretty sporty".

"It will be a test for the crews at the other extreme of the wind range - obviously their skills in sailing the boats in what will be extremely high speeds and also the concern of breakages that come with that.

"So we've got a pretty interesting week coming up."