Team NZ had finished nearly two legs ahead, when Sir Ben phoned in his retirement from the race.
All week, Team NZ helmsman Peter Burling has pushed the "continuous improvement" theme and commented that his team had even learnt valuable lessons from yesterday's postponement.
"We were actually surprised how windy six knots is out there," he told NZME correspondent Dana Johannsen afterwards. "We were really happy with how the boat was going today.
"It was going pretty quick upwind, and the manoeuvres and stuff were pretty solid. We've put a bit of work into our light-wind package and it seems to be going well.
"We've still got plenty to work on. Obviously, it was the first opportunity to line up against everyone with light air and we're pleased with how we're going."
"Obviously, it's really nice to take a good win like that, but it that light air, you're almost racing yourself a little bit. You make one manoeuvre or one mistake in a certain area of the race, and you can lose some pretty significant margins.
"For ourselves, it was just really pleasing to sail a clean race."
At the other extreme, Sir Ben paid a huge price for not negotiating the fickle airs nearly well enough, his boat falling off the foils with a crash as they turned into the second leg.
"We had a pretty big wipeout, stuffed the bows in and killed all the speed, and lost a huge amount of ground," Sir Ben grimaced later. "It was a frustrating moment for us.
"We'd had a nice start against Emirates Team New Zealand, but they were coming over us with pace. We had to gybe away and we had a systems failure, which meant we couldn't control our new daggerboard coming onto the port gybe.
"We stuffed the bows in, wiped off all the speed and in those light winds, once you do that, it's just so painful trying to rebuild the speed high and get going again.
"In all fairness to Team NZ, they were really going well in those conditions against us and more than likely would have found a way past us anyway."
Sir Ben gained some consolation later in the day with victory over Team France, in a contest that often resembled two snails racing.
Mercifully, their journey was reduced by two whole legs, which may have cost the French, who miscalculated the final few hundred metres to lose on the line.
Losses to BAR and Team Japan today leave France precariously placed at the foot of the standings, facing elimination after the weekend.
"There are still races to do and two races to try to win, for sure," said skipper Franck Cammas. "It is important for us, we'll see what happens tomorrow, but we are still alive.
"It was a frustrating day for us, especially in the second race, because we were faster downhile and slower on the upwind maybe, and we finished at the upwind gate.
"It was a race we could have won, but this is life."
With Team Sweden idle today, Japan and Oracle Team USA were the others to sample the lighter winds and both seemed to handle them satisfactorily.
Japan and former Team NZ skipper Dean Barker edged clear of the elimination zone for now with victory over France, and probably should have made more of their opportunities against USA.
The Americans copped a pre-start penalty for not entering the start box on time, but turned a 22-second deficit at the fourth mark into a 35-second advantage by the fifth.
For skipper Jimmy Spithill, the outcome was a valuable step towards securing the bonus point available for finishing atop the defender series table.
Schedule today
Team Japan beat Team France by five min 59 secs
Team New Zealand beat Team BAR by submission
Oracle Team USA beat Team Japan by 32 secs
Team BAR beat Team France by 23 secs
Standings
Oracle Team USA 7pts
Emirates Team NZ 6pts
Land Rover BAR (GBR) 5pts
Softbank Team Japan 3pts
Artemis Racing (Sweden) 2pts
Groupama Team France 2pts
