0 America's Cup: Team NZ's successful return to action
- News
- by Team Racing-Yachts.com
- 30-04-2020
Team New Zealand judged their return to the water on Thursday a success as they resumed testing and development, using their social distancing alarm devices.
The America’s Cup defenders had their boatbuilders back in action on Tuesday as a return to level 3 eased working restrictions introduced to guard against the coronavirus pandemic.
Now desperately behind with their plans following the five-week lockdown at level 4 they have sought advice from the government and Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to get back on the water. The got clearance from the coast guard and the harbour master.
Team New Zealand sent a crew of four out on their scaled down test boat Te Kahu. They reduced their staff on support boats.
The sailors were wearing the new safety devices that have been developed over the last two weeks with the technology partner, Dunedin-based Igtimi.
The battle against Covid-19 has sparked an impromptu technical innovation with their technology partner Zealand and Igtimi, a GPS tracking and big data company based in Dunedin, to create personal separation and contact tracing tags that sends out an alarm when the wearer is too close to a colleague.
An ultra wide band positioning system of personal tags was developed that accurately measures the distance between people.
Worn by team member, the tags are programmed to react by flashing, beeping and vibrating when a pre-programmed perimetre is intersected. The interactions between the two tags (or people) are then logged for contact tracing purposes.