America’s Cup organisers have explained why the event village will remain shut on spare race days, even when postponed racing is taking place.

On Thursday, the America’s Cup village remained closed despite a series of postponed races taking place on the Great Sound during the afternoon.

Organisers told The Royal Gazette that spare race days provided the chance for “hundreds of staff working at the event to recharge”.

“Spare race days are in the schedule to ensure that we can catch up with the race programme if we have to postpone racing for any reason, as we did on May 31,” a spokeswoman for the 35th America’s Cup said.

“We have over five weeks of activities throughout the 35th America’s Cup and, throughout our planning, we have made sure that the health and wellbeing of all our staff is a priority, so we use the spare race days to ensure everyone has a chance to recharge.

“The decision to use a spare race day can only be made late on the day before, obviously because we want to give ourselves as much time as we can to try and go racing, but if the weather is against us then the decision is taken.

“At that point, it is obviously too late to then make last-minute adjustments to the planning and execution of all the America’s Cup Village activities by telling staff that they now have to come in, so, as planned, we keep the America’s Cup Village closed.”