It seems to be a case of will they – won’t they! Well not really. In an article by Tony Esposito on IBI News on the 11th March quoted on the Front Page it states “America’s Cup World Series regatta on schedule for Italy”.
On the Emirates Team New Zealand website it sates “It is quite obvious that the ACWS Cagliari event cannot go ahead.” And on the America’s Cup Website it is stated “Challenger of Record (COR) 36 Calls for Postponement of the ACWS Sardinia”
Considering on the 10th March the Italian Government called a nationwide ‘lockdown’ including travel, large public gatherings etc, etc it was always going to be highly unlikely that an event with the profile of an America’s Cup World Series would be allowed to take place whatever the wishes of the organisers were.
Add to that, the fact that many of the competitors and support teams would be travelling from outside Italy, namely the UK, USA and New Zealand, AND OF COURSE would have to get home again from a virus hotspot with all the ramifications that would entail.
Then with the rumours of a potential US travel ban which became a reality a couple of days ago (and nobody knows if that would be extended) just how might the New York Yacht Club team get home again after the event – if there were flights available?
Sailing Anarchy called it on the 13th and it gives us no pleasure to be correct as one regatta after another is postponed or, if annual, cancelled altogether. We would rather be able to report on ‘x’ closely beating ‘y’ while coming up the final windward leg of the last race of a regatta but sadly it looks like that is unlikely to be the case for some weeks to come with regattas falling off various schedules like ‘snow off a dyke’.
Easy to say that things are moving fast but the signs that Cagliari wasn’t going to happen were there for all to see. – SS.
Title inspiration seems pretty obvious.
