"It was a pretty hairy moment!" - that was the reaction from Team Japan's Kiwi helmsman Dean Barker after a spectacular pre-race collision with Sir Ben Ainslie at the America's Cup today.

Barker was in a forgiving mood despite revealing Ainslie's Team Great Britain had caused significant damage to his boat and well as his own.

The British sailing knight was clearly at fault in the jostle ahead of the start of the sixth and final race of the regatta's opening day in Bermuda.

"Obviously we had a bit of a 'love tap', as Ben would call it," said Barker in referencing Ainslie's previous rear-ending of Team New Zealand in a practice race earlier this week.

"It was a pretty hairy moment at the time, seeing the leeward hull landing on our boat.

"I saw an ugly big black hull come towards the side of the boat and proceeded to land on the hull. I think one of our grinding handles went through the side of their boat.

"Basically all the guys were knocked off their pedestals."

"We have to assess the damage. There's quite a bit of damage, we broke our steering wheel.

"Fortunately none of the guys were too badly injured."

"Clearly Ben wasn't intending to hit us, but it's pretty frustrating.

"We'll see how it goes, we'll be doing everything we can to get the boat repaired for tomorrow and we look forward to getting into that race."

Japan went on to win the race after earlier losing to Artemis in Barker's first appearance at the Auld Mug since departing Team New Zealand after the San Francisco regatta in 2013.

Ainslie's boat suffered worst damage in the collision and he faces a race against time to front against Peter Burling and Team NZ and Cup holders Oracle Team USA tomorrow.

"Our boat is pretty badly damaged," he said. "It has a fairly sizeable hole in the port hull.

"It was actually a great effort by the team to get the boat around the track in the state that it was.

"I think we were better off keeping foiling, we finished the race and kept the thing foiling all the way into the harbour.

"Luckily we did because when we got back to the dock she was on her way down."

Ainslie didn't directly apologise for the incident.

"Fortunately no one was hurt and we can move on," he said at the post-race press conference.

"It was a difficult situation where we were.

"He (Dean) did a good job and got the overlap and we just got slightly too high on the foil, which can happen easily in these boats, and we got the sideways slip and we came together."

"It's unfortunate that it happened, but when you are pushing these boats as hard as we are, it's inevitably going to happen from time to time."

"Our shore team are fantastic guys and I know they're going to do the best job possible to get us out on the water as quickly as possible."

-NZ Herald