Ben Ainslie, the Land Rover BAR skipper, chose his words very carefully when asked about his thoughts on Oracle Team USA being labelled as the home team on an Island that flies the same Union flag as the one on the wing-sail of his team’s AC45F racing catamaran.

“Obviously Jimmy [Spithill], Russell [Coutts] and Oracle brought the America’s Cup to Bermuda, and so they definitely have the rights to claim to be the home team,” said Ainslie, who won the “Auld Mug” with Oracle at the previous America’s Cup.

“We certainly have great ties with Bermuda with its British heritage. They have been incredibly supportive of us. I think Bermuda is as proud of its British heritage as we are from our side.”

It was probably not the response many expected, but perhaps a wise one to avoid adding more fuel to Oracle’s burning desire to break their Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series duck at the venue they have chosen to call home.

Jimmy Spithill, the Oracle skipper, seemed completely unfazed over which team has the right to call Bermuda home. His thoughts, perhaps, were focused solely upon rewarding the local community, who have embraced the Oracle team, with the victory that has so far eluded the defender.

“Bermuda has been so welcoming to the team and to the America’s Cup, trust me, we’d love nothing better than to reward them with a great result,” Spithill said.

The locals are behind us. We’re responsible for bringing it here. They’re getting behind us.”

Oracle finished third at the first leg of the World Series in Portsmouth, and were second at the second leg in Gothenburg, a first on home waters would seem to be a natural progression.

However, while Spithill is pumped up for the challenge, even he admits that his team have their work cut out among a formidable fleet boasting the best sailors and the fastest boats in the world.

“With the levels of the teams, it’s completely open,” he said. “It will come down to the best team.”

Before being put on the spot, Ainslie spoke fondly of sailing in Bermuda’s turquoise waters.

The four-times Olympic gold medalist won a gold medal in the Laser when the Island hosted the 1995 World Youth Sailing Championships, and is also a two-times Argo Group Gold Cup winner, having won back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010.

“It’s been fun racing here and we’ve had some great results,” Ainslie said. “We just love being here. It’s a great Island, fantastic sailing and great people.”

Emirates Team New Zealand are the overall World Series leaders heading into the third and final event of 2015, and are the only team that has finished no lower than third in every race so far.

“There’s a saying it’s better to be lucky than good, and we’ve been fortunate to have a couple of nice regattas,” Glenn Ashby, the Emirates Team New Zealand skipper and sailing director, said.

“We haven’t sailed together as a team since Gothenburg so yesterday’s training session we important for us. The conditions on the Great Sound were perfect and we utilized it to full advantage to practice getting the boat around the course as best we can.

“We’ve seen any team here can win any race, so we’re looking forward to getting out and racing.”

Further down the pecking order are the likes of Softbank Team Japan, Artemis Racing and Groupama Team France who will be looking to make inroads on the leaders.

“We’ve had a couple of shockers,” Nathan Outteridge, the Artemis Racing helmsman, acknowleged.

“We’ve been sailing well at times, but we haven’t been able to string it together. In Portsmouth and Gothenburg we made some big errors and if we can avoid them this week, we’ll be in much better shape.”

The World Series is the first stage of competition of the 35th America’s Cup and will feature all six teams.

At stake at the conclusion of the series are points that teams will carry through to the America’s Cup Qualifiers in 2017.

Two races are scheduled for today in the Great Sound, starting at 2.10pm.

Racing continues tomorrow on “Super Sunday”, when the points for positions on the leaderboard will be doubled.