AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- The departure by Team New Zealand from her berth in Viaduct Basin was raucous. The crew aboard TNZ must have felt like it was running out onto a football field in front of the hometown crowd. All 3.9 million New Zealanders are solidly behind their team.

	The first race of the America's Cup was virtually a breeze for Alinghi and its crew.

Fifteen minutes later, the challenger Alinghi received polite applause on its way out to the race course.

Once on the water, TNZ had problems on both its race boat and trial horse. On the race boat, the top of the jib ripped and fell to the deck prior to the prestart. This was a bad omen.

The race committee did a good job getting the race off in time in 23 knots wind. There was little aggressive behavior by either boat as they jockeyed for position. At the gun, it was a clean start for both boats. After eight minutes, Alinghi to leeward (downwind) worked its way until the exhaust of her sails forced TNZ to maneuver away.

During this eight-minute run, TNZ started filling up with water. Later, TNZ designer Tom Schnackenberg estimated that six tons of water was in the boat. The pressure from the extra weight might have had an effect on the rig because the back-end of the boom snapped. At this point, Alinghi was 1½ boat lengths ahead. But with a broken boom, the mainsail was not controllable.

To make matters worse, the jib ripped away from the deck of the boat. The crew valiantly tried to set another sail, but the second one also ripped away from the forestay. Alinghi simply sailed away in a conservative manner and went on to win Race 1.

To observers on the race course, it looked like TNZ was a fragile boat and certainly not race ready. The crew looked stunned by the many unfortunate problems it encountered.

Breakdowns in sailboat racing are common -- but not in the America's Cup. In fact, the last time a similar incident happened was in the first race of the 1920 America's Cup where the mainsail fell down on the American defender Resolute.

The most serious problem is the water coming aboard the New Zealand boat. It might have been the combination of heavy wind and spectator chop that caused the problem, but Alinghi sailing only one length away had no trouble at all.

The weather forecast for the race Sunday (7 p.m. ET, Saturday, ESPN2) is for winds of 12 knots -- conditions that many in Auckland think favor the Swiss boat. In the brief time the two boats sailed alongside each other, the speed seemed even, so the final result is still very much in question.

The 4½-month challenger trials clearly were a benefit to Alinghi. The crew is battle-hardened, while Team New Zealand has had only itself to race against.

At a postrace news conference, Schnackenberg said his engineering team was going over every part of the boat. When equipment starts to break, crews often get gun-shy. We will watch closely to see if this early setback affects the team's sailing.

In 1977, Gary Jobson served as tactician to win the America's Cup for Ted Turner. ESPN's lead sailing analyst, Jobson will be providing ESPN.com with daily analysis throughout the America's Cup. E-mail him at garyjobson@cs.com or check out his Web site at jobsonsailing.com.