After more than four hours of trying to get a start away on the third day, the race team had to contend with 120-degree shifts, huge waves, waterspouts, hail storms, and wind ranging from 3 to 33 knots, organisers report.

However, with a deadline to be back in the harbour before the ebb tide kicked in, the fleet was sent ashore with no more races on the board.

The course and marks were moved more than a dozen times with more than 10 starts attempted, but each time it was abandoned in the final minute.

There are two more days left in the Finn Gold Cup, with a maximum six races possible and one more needed to get a valid series, which was originally intended to include 10 races.

Conditions look set to stabilise tomorrow.

New Zealand’s Andy Maloney, one of the victorious America’s Cup crew earlier this year in Auckland, holds the lead in an event that doubles as the Finn World Championships having placed third, second and eighth in the first three races.

Those finishes left Maloney on 13 points, one ahead of Spain’s 21-year-old Joan Cardona.

Cardona won the second race and was runner-up in the third, but an 11th-place finish in the opener left him playing catch-up.

Cardona came fourth overall at the Finn European Championships in Vilamoura three weeks ago, retaining his under-23 title in the process.

Hungary’s European champion Zsombor Berecz is in third position on 21 points, after winning the third race.