America's Cup organisers have offered police four new boats to help them patrol the races on Waitematā harbour.
Team New Zealand AC75 Te Aihe sailing off Auckland. Photo: Richard Gladwell/Sail World/Photosport
The event is early next year and police are in charge of national security arrangements.
They've warned ministers it will be a struggle to get more boats if they are needed but it is unclear whether the America's Cup gift will be accepted.
Police gave the government an update on their America's Cup planning in June, saying it cannot easily scale-up resources in time for the Cup.
They said it takes a significant amount of time to develop and deploy staff into maritime roles.
Staff themselves need specialist training to work in the maritime unit, which requires significant travel and accommodation costs.
As such, they told officials if additional maritime resources were needed, or requested, any less than six months out from the event, it would be difficult to achieve.
It said the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment had been told several times of the issue, as had ACE, America's Cup Event Limited.
In a bid to aid police, ACE chair Tina Symmans approached the police commissioner directly, and proposed spending Lotteries Commission funding on providing four additional vessels to the police line-up.
They would come with the appropriate lights and signage.
A police spokesperson said there was already a replacement programme in place for the police's RHIB fleet, the smaller, inflatable type boats, separate to the America's Cup event.
But it was not clear whether police would take up the ACE offer.
In the report, obtained under the Official Information Act, police did say if they accepted the proposal there would be significant costs to train more officers, the travel and accommodation needed, and the costs to run the boats themselves.
Symmans also asked if officers could be used for crowd control, by coming on board marshall boats.
That was flat out rejected by police.
Despite a potential issue with resourcing, police are confident they can cover any security arrangements for the event.
They would not reveal any of their policing plans for operational reasons, but with international travel ruled out due to Covid-19, the threat to the event is diminished.
A spokesperson said Covid-19 remains on the radar, and they will be following all the best practice guidelines around that as part of their response.
