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From Andy Green
Tell us what you think? Being out at the Gold Cup in Bermuda and seeing how Mark C-J and his team both sailed and conduct themselves was a real pleasure. They made a very good account of themselves and having been in that position myself a few years ago it was refreshing to see someone making the effort to get out there and get amongst it. It is the only way to move forward. There are always plenty of nay sayers around to suggest that ; it was someone else's money, you are not good enough, not fast enough etc but Mark has tons of talent and more importantly lots of determination. Determination and perseverance will get you pretty much anywhere you want to be. He has talent as well.

From Andrew Banks
Will OneWorld`s recent mast breakage affect their chances of winning the Cup? In spite of Mark Chisnell's optimistic diary entry it appears that things are not going at all well for the One World Challenge (OWC) at the moment. A few days after they break a brand new mast at the start of two boat testing, the legal mud starts to fly in all directions and accusations and counter accusations are levelled at both former and existing One World employees.

The New Zealand Herald reports that a former employee of OWC, who also happens to have been a key member of TNZ in 1995 and in 2000, is alleged to have sold or offered to sell technical information stemming from the Seattle team's design process to Oracle Racing, and is now the subject of a writ issued against him in the US. On the face of it this is not good news, but what seems to be a relatively simple case of Cup espionage, appears to be rather more subtle and complicated.

The former OWC employee, referred to in their legal papers served as 'John Doe', appears to have left the syndicate following his refusal to take a pay cut after Craig McCaw's decision to downsize his involvement in the Challenge last March. Since then 'John Doe' has apparently kept to the terms negotiated in his severance package; while it is alleged that OWC employees started to badmouth 'John Doe' and make a number of defamatory if 'unofficial' statements about his private and professional life to journalists. 'John Doe', with his professional reputation at stake, is understandably reluctant to take this lying down; and it appears he will shortly instigate legal proceedings against OWC, on a multitude of counts, in New Zealand.

To further complicate matters there are rumours that suggest the alleged contact between 'John Doe' and Oracle Racing may not have occurred other than in the imagination of an Oracle Racing employee, and is merely an attempt by the Ellison team to confuse OWC's designers into holding off on design finalisation of their boats. It also seems likely that when 'John Doe' files his suit against OWC in New Zealand, the case is likely to be heard during the period of the Challenger Elimination rounds, not the sort of distraction any team needs (or additional expense in lawyers fees), particularly so if members of the sailing team are called to testify on a race day.

From Mikael Ahrenberg
Two down six to go?Tough luck for Amer Sports One and Dalton. But... the fact is he did not lose out so much, and the real race is at hand when they hit the southern ocean. A tight finish, which I think gives more fuel to the Dalt's. It will be very interesting to see how they are to go about it, as the southern ocean is no retirement place. Anyhow, the race goes on and in the end I think Dalt's are on podium place, hopefully number one - that is all going well. It remains to be seen. The most interesting part is to see how the boat manages, as the design is a bit different to the other competitors.

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