Dear Port Customer, As you may know, the America's Cup sailing event is being held between December 2020 and March 2021 in Auckland. It is a big event for Auckland and our city looks forward to hosting it, but it will also cause disruption to commercial shipping. As a follow-up to an earlier advisory distributed in August 2020 (attached for your convenience), we wish to share some updates as there have been some changes since then. We have advised relevant stakeholders that we can facilitate the use of race courses B & C – which are the preferred courses. Courses B & C will affect shipping as these are in the main channel. Course A will allow shipping but consideration will need to be given to racing / support vessels and spectators to get to/from the course (likewise with courses D & E). Please note that for all events both designated race days and reserve days will be able to race on courses B or C should they choose so and if the weather conditions are suitable for those courses. This means for all those days, the port will be closed for ship movements from 13:00 to 19:00 each day. - The last arrival time will be 12:00 hrs (11:00 hrs for Fergusson North ship arrivals)
- The last departure time will be 12:00 hrs
- The first arrival time will be 19:00 hrs
- The first departure time will be 19:00 hrs
The port will only know if the reserve days are needed, in cases where racing on any of the designated days is unable to occur. If the reserve days are not required, the port will be fully open. We will only be advised by 10:30 hrs each race day which course has been chosen for racing. However, there is likely to be some idea the night prior based on current and forecasted weather conditions. The events and dates are: America's Cup World Series and Xmas Cup | 17 to 20 December (inclusive) | | Prada Cup Round Robin Series | | Round Robin racing | | Fri 15 January to Sun 17 January | designated race days | | Mon 18 January & Tue 19 January | reserve days | | Fri 22 January to Sun 24 January | designated race days | | Mon 25 January & Tue 26 January | reserve days | | Prada Semi Finals | | Fri 29 January to Sun 31 January | designated race days | | Tue 2 February | designated race day | | Wed 3 February & Thu 4 February | reserve days | | Prada Finals | | Sat 13 February & Sun 14 February | designated race days | | Tue 16 February | reserve day | | Wed 17 February | designated race day | | Thu 18 February | reserve day | | Fri 19 February to Mon 22 February | designated race days | | Tue 23 February & Wed 24 February | reserve days | | America's Cup Racing | | Sat 06 March & Sun 07 March | designated race days | | Tue 09 March | reserve day | | Wed 10 March | designated race day | | Fri 12 March | designated race day | | Sat 13 March to Mon 15 March | designated race days only required if no final achieved by Fri 12 March | | Tue 16 March to Sun 21 March | reserve days |
|
![]()
At Ports of Auckland we will do our best to ensure the needs of commercial shipping is managed with the least possible disruption during the America's Cup event. Our Berthage Coordinators for the Container Terminal, Harbour Control and Multi-Cargo Operations team will liaise closely with customers when planning vessel calls when the event is underway. We will continue to keep you updated with developments as we get closer to the Event starting. Kind regards Allan D'Souza GM Marine, Engineering and General Operations Ports of Auckland | 
