Less than 48 hours after the last official race, Luna Rossa resumed their sailing activity with Alinghi.

"Being the only semi-finalist still working here in Valencia to not have raced against Alinghi, Luna Rossa will race the America's Cup defender Alinghi", announced yesterday.

Alinghi raced Emirates Team New Zealand two days before the Louis Vuitton Cup Finals and also against the Spanish Team during the Finals.

Racing got off at 3pm and the two teams trained for a couple of hours under moderate to light conditions in front of large fleet of happy spectators.

Aboard ITA 94, Luna Rossa had their full A-boat crew out for racing against Alinghi today, with James Spithill steering and Torben Grael doing the tactics.

On the Alinghi boat (nobody knows which boat they are sailing) it was Ed Baird steering and Brad Butterworth calling tactics, adding further fuel to the rumour that Baird has been given the top job ahead of Peter Holmberg.

Three starts took place and the corresponding races were abandoned after different degrees of completion.

The first race was actually only a prestart and ended at the first cross. It went to Alinghi's favor after a long dialup.

In the second start, Spithill managed to get the hook on Baird, forcing Alinghi to tack off on to port near the committee boat and make a downspeed start to the right.

There, Alinghi benefited from an enormous right shift and when the two boats crossed for the first time, they were ahead by more than ten boatlenghts. Shortly after, the race was abandoned.

The third race started after the race committee reset the starting and top mark due to a right shift of approximately 20 degrees. Actually, the race wouldn't have taken place in an official day since wind speed was at the limit, barely over 7 knots.

Presumably, Alinghi won that start again but Luna Rossa benefited from a righty and rounded the top mark around 8 boatlenghts ahead of Alinghi.

Luna Rossa also gained on the downwind leg but wind had dropped to 6.5 knots. The race stopped at the leeward gate where Alinghi torn their spinnaker after it was caught in the jumper.

As usual, very difficult to make any hard conclusions about performance.

"Alinghi's tacks and gybes were looking a bit ragged, as they did in the informal racing against the Kiwis a couple of weeks ago", commented Andy Rice on Sail Juice blog. "Crew work will definitely need to improve before they meet Dean Barker and Co, who look more and more slick with every race".