Emirates Team New Zealand and Oracle Team USA put on a spectacular show in Chicago during official practice at the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series yesterday.

The teams sit one-two on the overall leaderboard, but yesterday, neither team could stay upright.

New Zealand were the first to fall, capsizing late in a close match with Oracle. Emirates came off the foils, crashed down hard, and rolled into a capsize, with some crew members falling off the boat or jumping off the top hull.

All crew were safe and accounted for and New Zealand team recovered quickly to start the next race just 15 minutes later.

“These boats are pretty hard to sail and every now and then you get them wrong,” Peter Burling, the Emirates Team New Zealand helmsman, said. “We were going through a normal gybe, both rudders ventilated and I got ejected.

“It was our own doing but this is what practice days are for. It was a bit of a shame but the boat didn’t look too bad and we didn’t have any problems being straight back for the next race.

“Now we’re just looking forward to the rest of the weekend which I’m sure is going to be good.”

Oracle went over in the next race.

Well back of the leaders in the fleet race, Oracle appeared to be surprised by Artemis Racing approaching with rights.

As Jimmy Spithill, the Oracle skipper, rolled into a quick manoeuvre to avoid collision, the team didn’t have time to let off one of the lines, pinning the wing sail on the wrong side of the boat, and resulting in a capsize.

Fortunately, as with New Zealand, the American team were able to recover and resume racing.

“It was really puffy conditions out there today,” Tom Slingsby, the Oracle tactician, said. “The conditions made it tough for everyone with gusts up to 15 to 20 knots and sometimes people were getting caught out.

“However, having said that, the conditions were very raceable, really good if you were sailing well, but if you missed the shifts in the wind they were very frustrating.

“With our capsize, it was the last race of the day. We just didn’t see Artemis going upwind. We were lighting up our gybe on the layline and then saw Artemis at the last second.

“Jimmy [Spithill] did the right thing and turned up to avoid them but unfortunately we capsized.

“However, we didn’t hit them and we managed not to destroy two boats, so even though it’s frustrating and even though we came last in the race because of that, all in all it’s better than writing off two boats and not being able to compete this weekend when it really matters.

“It’s a practice day, it’s done and now we’re ready to roll tomorrow.

If one team stood out in the practice races it was SoftBank Team Japan, who won every race they started, three fleet races and a match race against Artemis Racing.

Chris Draper, Team Japan’s tactician, is hoping their form will hold into the weekend.

“We are really pleased with how it went today,” Draper said. “The results are good, the team sailed really well and we’ve made a pretty significant change to the way we’re sailing upwind, and that looks to have been really promising.

“If we can keep that moving forwards and keep building on everything we’ve been working on for the last three or four months, that will be great.

“You don’t get many chances to practice and obviously the boats we practice in all the time, away from races, are very different, so today has been very valuable.”

Draper is not getting carried away, and does not want his team focusing on what they have already accomplished, rather than what still lies ahead.

“The most important thing for us is to not think about the race results today,” he said.

“It all really starts tomorrow [Saturday] and then again on Sunday, even though it’s obviously good for our team and our partners to show just how well we can perform here in Chicago.”

Racing today is scheduled to start at 3.30pm Bermuda time, with three fleet races due to be run.