Prada Cup looks set to be delayed for up to seven days

Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli - Semi-Final - Day 2 - Hauraki Gulf - January 30, 2021 - Auckland - 36th America's Cup © Richard Gladwell / Sail-World.com

Two positive tests for COVID19 were announced by the NZ Government at noon today (Wednesday).

They are from the worst case scenario - from a large south Auckland school with over 1200 students, who have all been labeled as casual or close contacts of one of the three people who returned positive test returns, announced on Sunday.

That news triggered a three-day initial lock down, due to end/be reassessed this afternoon.

As of yesterday the authorities had not been able to identify the index case, that triggered the lockdown, and it was hoped that this would not be part of the school group. However it has transpired that the two new cases were siblings - one was a close contact of one of the students, and the other had been categorised as "casual plus". Surprisingly the husband of a woman in the same group who had tested positive, did not return a positive test result despite the two travelling for several hours together in a car.

Discussion from senior epidemiologists in Auckland who are not front-line members of the Health Dept team, however the practice in NZ has been for the academics and other epidemiologists to challenge each other publicly on strategy and interpretation of the available information.

Often this dialog is a "heads up" as to future Government actions.

Yesterday before the results of the contact testing was known, several of the external epidemiology group were calling for the Lockdown to be extended to allow further data collection. None of the Lockdowns called yet in New Zealand have ended on the initial date, and the usual response has been to extend the Lockdown with some situation specific tweaks. It was likely that this would be the outcome of the Lockdown announced effective from 2359hrs Sunday February 14.

For the Prada Cup, it seems there will be some impact.

Today, Wednesday, a race day was already cancelled due to the Lockdown.

The first reserve day is tomorrow Thursday and racing can be conducted on every day until Wednesday, February 24, 2021.

On paper that gives seven race days or 14 races available on the program. Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli has won four races in the best of seven series, and on paper only has two win three of the available 14 race-slots to be confirmed as a finalist.

It is not clear whether racing could proceed under a continuation of Level 3, which prohibits groups of people gathering for other than weddings or funerals and then restricted to 10 people, amongst a raft of other measures.

While the AC75's have a crew of 11, breaking that dictate and also compromising social distancing requirements, however they have been practice sailing today and Monday, without official action being taken and it must be assumed that situation would continue.

Most of the official boats have a crew size of less than ten, including the photography and media boats.

The only boats that would be affected are the spectator boats and particularly charter boats - which have more than 10 paying passengers.

If racing is stopped beyond Wednesday, the INEOS Team UK would appear to have a case to take to the Arbitration Panel to have the series declared to be affected by a Force Majeure, and the Arbitration panel would make a ruling which is binding on all parties. The Arbitration Panel has twice ruled on Force Majeure triggered by COVID-19 and the outcome was the cancellation of the two America's Cup World Series regattas scheduled for April and June 2020.

While the Prada Cup Final cannot be cancelled, and the Arbitration Panel must make a ruling (as must and Int Jury) on redress issues which are equitable to all affected competitors.

Further news is expected later this afternoon, and certainly by 4.30pm after a Govt Cabinet Meeting - which takes in all available information along with a recommendation of the Director General of Health, and makes a decision which takes into account the health impact and also the business impacts.

Yesterday the Government passed, under Urgency, a bill allowing support payments to SME's of less than 50 people in the event of a seven day lockdown - which the Government was quick to point out began at Sunday, in the current instance, and the Lockdown would need to extend until Sunday for the support payments to click in.