However, the organisers understood the risks involved, the city council’s agency and iwi say, and were even warned it was a bad gamble, a dolphin expert says.
The event, in Lyttelton Harbour, was set to get under way at 3pm on Saturday but was delayed after a dolphin was spotted in the racing zone.After it had not moved on after two hours, the day’s racing was abandoned entirely.Under SailGP’s marine mammal management plan, racing must stop if a dolphin is sighted and not continue until 20 minutes after it is last seen.The plan was developed alongside the Department of Conservation, Environment Canterbury and Ngāti Wheke to protect Hector’s dolphins, which are known to breed around Lyttelton at this time of year.Hector’s dolphins are native to New Zealand and are classed as nationally vulnerable, with about 15,000 in existence.
Coutts, the chief executive of SailGP, said other harbour users were not subject to such “restrictive” protocols.Nor did other countries require SailGP to agree to such measures before allowing racing there.Saturday’s incident was “another example of New Zealand being handcuffed by unprecedented layers of bureaucracy and red tape”.
“I find it astonishing the amount of influence iwi have over the authorities here in New Zealand,” he wrote, saying that DoC would not allow SailGP racing in Lyttlelton without approval from the iwi.
He said there were marine mammals in the water in all of the locations where SailGP raced worldwide.”We’ve never had an incident in 35 years.”
