Twenty minutes before the start the course signals were hoisted on the committee boat Wilhelmina indicating a triangular course with the first leg southwest, the second east by south and the third north by west one-half west. This gave the necessary thirty-mile triangle. The first leg was almost directly to windward and the wind velocity did not exceed three knots at the time of the start.

Ranger finished in a line sailing breeze at 4:21:33 and Endeavour ll did not finish until 4:40:05, a difference of 18 minutes and 32 seconds, a new record for a thirty-mile triangular course in a match for the America's Cup.