It was an anticlimactic start to day one of America's Cup racing at Auckland's downtown waterfront, with the city still under Covid-19 Alert Level 2 restrictions.
Fans were unable to gather in front of the big screens in the America's Cup Village.
Although there were many Kiwis out and about supporting their hometown heroes Level 2 restrictions put a dampener on celebrations.
On the water, the party was in full force when racing kicked off, with a strong showing of leisure craft surrounding the racecourse on the Waitematā Harbour.
Team New Zealand made a strong start, taking out the first race of the day, before Luna Rossa hit back.
On shore, those in the hospitality sector again took a hit with Damian McDowell of the Wynyard Pavilion saying the lack of domestic tourists to fill the place of foreign fans is disappointing.
“It was pretty gutting to be fair. We've done a lot of work over the last three months getting ready for this,” McDowell said.
“Because we don’t have visitors in New Zealand it’s really a local event at the moment on the ground, so Auckland’s missing out on those visitors from Wellington, from Christchurch, that would like to be here and free roaming and hopefully that can happen this weekend,” he added.
Despite the sparse crowds today, Steve Armitage of Auckland Unlimited says he is looking forward to the weekend.
“Hugely exciting, I think the team of people who have been working on this for the best part of three years seeing this all come to fruition and we're looking to the weekend to finish off with a bang and hoping we can do that with a large number of people,” Armitage said.
Auckland fans will face at least one more day of socially distant supporting however, with racing resuming on Friday, the same day cabinet meets to decide on the next alert level move.
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