Welcome to sailing day 11 of the 35th America’s Cup presented by Louis Vuitton.

This is the fourth day of the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Challenger Playoff Semi-finals. Today’s outcome will set the stage for the Play-off Finals scheduled to begin tomorrow.

The races will be between Artemis Racing and Softbank Team Japan. The teams will alternate their side of entry, with Artemis having a port-tack entry for their first start of the day.

Artemis need one win to make the finals; it’s two needed for Team Japan.

Play-off Scoring Format

• Race one or two decides which team will advance into the Play-off Finals

• Should only one race be completed and a tie occur, the team that won the last race will advance

Schedule

Oracle Team USA’s defender practice access period (11am-1pm)

Semi-final 2, Race 8: Artemis Racing v SoftBank Team Japan (2.08pm)

Semi-final 2, Race 9 (if necessary): SoftBank Team Japan v Artemis Racing (3.06pm)

Weather

Today may be another gear breaker for the two teams facing the finals of the Play-off Semi-final matches. At the 2pm “wind sampling” window for race eight, gusts on the Great Sound should be from the southwest at about 24 knots and stay in that range through the afternoon.

Thursday review

Artemis Racing made a large comeback yesterday and climbed ahead of SoftBank Team Japan to lead the series 4-3. If Artemis win the first race today, they are in the finals. If Team Japan survive, the final match is a sudden-death affair.

Artemis escaped possible elimination yesterday against Team Japan with three wins, and now sit one point ahead in the best-of-nine series.

In their first race of the day, Team Japan received an over-early recall penalty. The Swedes seized the opportunity and then methodically covered the Japanese tack for tack and gybe for gybe, eliminating any passing lanes for Dean Barker.

In another close match in their third match of the day, with the score now at 3-3, it appeared as though Barker would end the day with a plus-one, but fate intervened when the Swedes sped into gate five on port within the three-boat-length circle and narrowly missed clipping the Japanese boat as they tacked around the left-hand mark for the final downwind leg. The umpires penalised Japan for not allowing enough room at the mark, sealing their fate. It was another point for Artemis and gave them a 4-3 lead going into today.

Also on Thursday, Emirates Team New Zealand scored two wins to completed an emphatic 5-2 win over Land River BAR. The Kiwis will be watching closely from the sidelines for any weakness shown by their potential opponents.

For their part, Sir Ben Ainslie’s British team demonstrated the big gains the team have made throughout this campaign.

New Zealand helmsman Peter Burling gave major kudos to his shore team for their incredible effort over the past 48 hours to make New Zealand race-ready. He and the Kiwi team are still working on restoring their boat to 100 per cent after the capsize.

• For today’s media briefing, click on the PDF under “Related Media”