AC35: AC Race Committee heading out now to make the Go or No decision

[NOTE: Whether or not there is racing today, we will have our usual Facebook Live Pre-Race Show at 0930 PDT – 1230 EDT, 1330 ADT, 1830 CET, 0430 (yikes!) Thursday NZT. We have a great photo sequence from yesterday's Kiwi Capsize to share with you, and the latest news on how ETNZ are faring, no pun intended. As always we do it on my personal Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/tom.ehman. If you are not one of my 5,000 FB friends you can "follow" the page and get on for the FB Live shows. Sorry, I can't add more friends; FB has a 5k limit. We are working on a YouTube live solution so we can air the shows, which are already getting north of 1,000 views, on FB as well as here on SAILING ILLUSTRATED. –TFE]

OVERNIGHT THE FORECAST in Bermuda actually got slightly worse as to max wind than what we posted before turning in. But ACRM (America's Cup Race Management) led by Regatta Director Iain Murray (AUS) is under enormous pressure to get racing completed due to the very tight schedule ahead with, incredibly, no reserve days between the scheduled and of the Challenger Semis and Finals. And Friday looks to be another breezy, marginal day, and the weekend weather is raceable but stormy with lots of rain in the forecast. At Race Time today (1400 ADT) the latest forecast is for 23 knots gusting to 36.

SI's weather guru, Mark Michaelsen, tells us that the current reading is 23 knots gusting 27.5, but that it is forecast to back off slightly. "They should be able to day," Mark told your Ed. optimistically just now (0650 PDT – 1050 ADT). The max wind limit is an average 24 knots or above from eight minutes to three minutes before a scheduled start. The yachts enter two minutes before the start.

The forecast for tomorrow looks fine. Friday is breezy but should be raceable. Saturday and Sunday look wet. No fun to drive scooters around BDA in the rain....

Many of the Bermuda locals use a bespoke weather app, available on the Apple App store for iOS (not sure about Android), called Bermuda Radar. Cost is $1.99 but seems worth it for the real-time radar as well as differentiated "Public" and "Marine" forecasts. SAILING ILLUSTRATED's team are using it, too, in addition to Windy.com and Predict Wind. The Bermuda Radar splash page looks like this....