At the time of the America Cup Race Management briefing yesterday morning, prospects for racing were not bright. They got darker as the afternoon wore on. No wind. No racing.

Bermuda Weather’s early forecasts for race times warned of 3-5 knots at the 2pm first race time and predicted it would drop to 2-4 by 3.35pm — the scheduled start of the fourth and final race of the day.

Race director Iain Murray had said that more recent forecasts provided by the teams were more optimistic.

However, racing never got started at all. The four races scheduled for yesterday will be sailed today, a “reserve day”, wind willing.

Those races, when they happen, will be crucial to SoftBank Team Japan and Groupama Team France. Both sit on two points going into the day. They both sail in two matches of the next four. Land Rover BAR also are scheduled to sail two races.

Artemis Racing, the form favourites coming into the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Qualifiers, sit on two points. They have another day off to re-gather. Their next race is Race 9 against defender Oracle Team USA.

Race 4 of this second round robin will see Japan and France matched up and battling for their America’s Cup lives. They meet first when sailing resumes, hopefully. Following on the day’s card, it is Land Rover BAR v Emirates Team New Zealand, Oracle v Team Japan, and Team France v Land Rover BAR.

In yesterday’s briefing, Murray had hoped the breeze would get around to the east and that there might be enough of it to race.

“We [the race committee] will go out on the course at 12.30 to see.” Murray said, “The wind strength determines whether we will race or not.

“Above seven knots the course would be a 4F [four legs and a finish] or more. At six knots of breeze, the course would become a 3F course.”

But what wind there was, about 6-8 knots, started dying away about a half-hour before the 2.08pm scheduled start of the day’s proceedings.

Murray had explained earlier that the wind is measured 5½ metres above the water and averaged over 30 seconds. The sampling period is between eight minutes before the start and three minutes before the start.

If at any time in that period the average wind goes below six knots, the committee has to reset the sequence for the start.

If the wind is stable in that five-minute sampling period, the sequence continues and the race is on.

But yesterday it wasn’t. “At just above six knots,” Murray continued, “the yachts will foil on the reaching leg, but that’s where the trouble starts. They have to go [downwind] to the bottom mark.

“In six knots of wind, the boats will reach [go across the wind] OK, they will go upwind OK, but they will have a lot of difficulty going dead downwind ... When these boats gybe, they will probable turn 180 degrees. At seven knots, the boats pop up on their foils and off they go.”

But yesterday they didn’t.