The postponement of the first races of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Challenger Play-offs did not come as a disappointment to everyone yesterday.

In fact, Sir Ben Ainslie and Land Rover BAR were quite pleased to have been spared the prospect of taking on Emirates Team New Zealand in light winds.

The British have struggled in Bermuda in those conditions, something Ainslie was more that willing to admit.

“To be perfectly honest, we’re not too unhappy about the situation because, as most people who have been following this event will have seen, that with very light air, we do struggle,” he said yesterday while waiting on the Great Sound for a race that never came.

“So, we’ll look forward to a better forecast for tomorrow [Monday] and the rest of the week.”

Winds rarely rose above five knots yesterday and were as low as two knots on the water at the scheduled 2pm start time.

Today’s forecast is far better, with winds predicted to be between 12 and 18 knots from the south by the afternoon.

“While we tried hard to race, we unfortunately had to postpone the four races planned for because the winds simply didn’t reach the required six-knot strength,” Iain Murray, the America’s Cup race director, said.

“This is how it is sometimes in sailing — here in Bermuda, we have been spoilt for action so far, and today was just one of those days.”

Yesterday’s races have been moved to today, which was a scheduled rest day, with New Zealand and BAR facing each other in the first and third races.

SoftBank Team Japan and Artemis Racing compete in the second semi-final, with Nathan Outteridge, the Artemis skipper, confident about his team’s chances.

“We are excited to be here,” Outteridge said. “To get to the play-off finals, we are going to have to beat Dean Barker and his team first. We have beaten them in both races of the round robin and we are looking forward to the semi-finals.”

Barker, meanwhile, was among those keen to get out on to the water yesterday after his team’s defeat in the final round of the Qualifiers by BAR on Saturday. However, he was not completely surprised by the outcome.

“Disappointed today was postponed as we were really hoping to squeeze at least one race in, but the weather had another plan,” Barker, the SoftBank skipper, said.

“Our forecast models have been very accurate in the competition, so we were expecting this could happen today. The weather looks like it’ll improve tonight and we’ll have great racing tomorrow.”