Covid 19 coronavirus and America's Cup: Team New Zealand's high-tech plan to monitor social distancing

Team New Zealand haven't been able to get out on the water during the lockdown. Photo / ETNZ

Losing vital time in their bid to prepare to defend the America's Cup next year due to lockdown, Emirates Team New Zealand have had to plan accordingly.

With the country set to drop from alert level 4 to level 3 on Tuesday, the current holders of the Auld Mug have worked out what they need to do to get back to work as soon as possible - and what it will take to do so.

After importing several chlorination-producing machines to help sanitise the team base and the North Shore building facility where the build of the team's second AC75 has been frozen for five week, the team has also taken steps to monitor social distancing between its members.

Team New Zealand enlisted the help of Dunedin tech company Igtimi to develop a system that monitors social distancing electronically.

"It was obvious to us that monitoring social distancing would be both difficult and distracting for the team to be constantly judging their distance by eye all day long," Team New Zealand chief executive Grant Dalton said.

"So we went looking for a simple technological system that could aid the team with their personal distancing, but nothing seemed to be readily available.

"Because we are an organisation with technology at its core, we looked at what we could do ourselves and who we knew could help."

Igtimi developed a system of personal tags that accurately measure the distance between people. The tags are programmed to react by flashing, beeping and vibrating when a pre-programmed perimeter is intersected. The interactions between the two tags (or people) are then logged for contact-tracing purposes.

"We have basically come up with a cost-effective technical solution to keep the Emirates Team New Zealand crew separated in their own bubbles in their work environment, and recording any contact between them for traceability and accountability," Igtimi co-director Brent Russell explained.