7.30pm
The Italian Prada syndicate emphatically showed they were back in the hunt for the Louis Vuitton Cup with two victories in a marathon day's yacht racing on the Hauraki Gulf today.
After winning only three of their first seven matches, Prada emerged with a new bow and mainsail on their boat
ITA-74 after the week-long break between the first and second round robins.
First up today Prada faced their compatriots Mascalzone Latino over a shortened course in the what was actually the last race of the first round.
Mascalzone began well in the 11.15am start, getting a 19 seconds jump on Prada and managing to hold them out for about 20 minutes.
But by the first mark Prada were ahead by 49sec, and went on to win by 4min 28sec.
Prada went into their second race of the day against San Fransisco-based Oracle with a chance to climb into third equal position among the nine teams competing for the right to challenge Team New Zealand for the America's Cup in February.
The first two legs went well for the Americans with Oracle having far more momentum at the start and leading round the first mark by 45sec.
Work done to their boat USA-76 during the break appeared to be paying dividends and they seemed to have overcome earlier suspicions they struggled in light breezes downwind.
On the second leg, with the wind behind them, Oracle pulled away to be 1min 14sec ahead at the second mark.
But on the third leg Prada first caught Oracle and then, in an astounding manoeuvre, overtook billionaire Larry Ellison's team as they closed in on the third mark.
For maybe 10 minutes the boats raced each other parallel to the lefthand layline but way out from it.
They passed the mark a considerable distance from it and kept going for a while before Prada, on the left, pushed Oracle back towards the left layline.
Turning through about 90 degrees, the boats went back across a line level with the mark and reached the left layline.
Prada was then clearly ahead of Oracle and headed for the mark which they reached 15sec ahead of their pursuer.
Oracle never came back at them and Prada went on to win by 1min 55sec.
On a day when wind speeds varied between about 12 knots and almost nothing, and in direction from southwest to southeast Mascalzone gave a hint they could be heading for the upset of the tournament in their second race against unbeaten OneWorld.
With only one win so far, Mascalzone headed OneWorld at the first two marks, but the Italians let OneWorld split tack on the third leg, with the boats as much as 2100m apart at one point.
A wind shift strongly favoured the Seattle-based team and they took the lead, going on to win by 4min 1sec.
The British GBR team clocked up their fourth win in a row, when they crossed the finish line about at about 6.50pm, 46sec ahead of Stars and Stripes, in a race restarted after light winds caused its abandonment earlier in the day.
It was a tight race in which the lead changed several times before the umpires penalised Team Dennis Conner at the fourth mark.
Stars and Stripes had just squeezed around the mark 12sec ahead, but were ruled to have failed to keep clear when required to, and had to carry out a penalty turn.
The British grabbed the lead and did not relinquish it for the remaining two legs of the race.
7.30pm
The Italian Prada syndicate emphatically showed they were back in the hunt for the Louis Vuitton Cup with two victories in a marathon day's yacht racing on the Hauraki Gulf today.
After winning only three of their first seven matches, Prada emerged with a new bow and mainsail on their boat
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