Crowds come to watch America's Cup World Series in the big breeze

7:48 PM Sat 10 Sep 2011 GMT

'34th America&rsquo;s Cup-AC World Series-Plymouth 2011-Racing day 1' Gilles Martin-Raget/www.americascup.com Click Here to view large photo

Big crowds - estimated to be in excess of 10,000 turned out to watch the first day of racing at the AC World Series - Plymouth, and they were treated to a display of excellent racing in challenging conditions.

Emirates Team New Zealand won two of three fleet races to open the event. Not to be outdone, Russell Coutts and his ORACLE Racing crew set the pace in the AC500 Speed Trials, posting the fastest time over the 500 meter runway, two seconds clear of the next fastest finisher.

The race course was set up in the Sound, just meters offshore from the Plymouth Hoe, making day one of the event pure 'stadium sailing'.

'It was pretty awesome to see a crowd like that supporting the sport,' said Artemis Racing skipper Terry Hutchinson. 'There were a lot of public on the Plymouth Hoe and around the course. I don't think anyone expected something like that. Imagine what could happen with a sunny day.'

With the wind blowing in excess of 20 knots at times, boat handling was the key skill today, combined with brave starting. Dean Barker and the Kiwis took the first race with their big rivals from Cascais, Portugal. ORACLE Racing Spithill, in hot pursuit. James Spithill's colleagues on ORACLE Racing Coutts were disqualified for being over too early on the start line.