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Race 1 - the first time Team New Zealand, the defender, faced Alinghi, the challenger. The wind was very strong and there was a choppy sea. It was very windy, and if it had been a Louis Vuitton race, it would have been cancelled. The boats started well, and Team New Zealand were slightly ahead. However soon after the start we noticed that the New Zealand boat was taking on a lot of water.

Some waves had come into the boat before the start, and as they were racing along, it started pouring in through the side of the boat leaning over (called the leeward side). It was so bad that one of the sailors had to use the bucket they have as a toilet to bail the water out. They think about 6 tonnes of water was sloshing about inside the boat (that's about as heavy as five cars!)

The next thing that happened was the end of the boom (that's the long spar along the bottom of the mainsail) broke, so the mainsail couldn't set properly, and flapped around.

As if that wasn't bad enough, then the part of the forestay that holds the jib broke, and the jib just came loose and flapped everywhere. When they tried to put up another sail, the same thing happened.

If they had kept going, they would not be able to use any of their sails properly, and they would be very likely to do more damage to the boat. So the skipper, Dean Barker, decided to drop out of the race, and go back to get the boat fixed and ready for the next day. That meant that Alinghi won the race, 1-0.