Auckland diary

"I'm not 007" Sean Reeves claims. Nigel Cherrie reports on the latest twists and turns down America's Cup alley

Just when it looked like that the America's Cup could go a full week without the design secrets scandal being dragged to new depths through the media, the man at the center of it all has decided to answer back.

Sean Reeves confronted the allegations that were stacking up against him in an interview with The Weekend Herald, New Zealand's national newspaper.

Reeves, the former rules adviser for both Team New Zealand and the US OneWorld Challenge is accused of trying to peddle the design secrets from his former employers onto the Oracle Racing, GBR Challenge and Stars & Stripes campaigns.

"I'm not 007," Reeves told the Herald from his home in Devonport, North Auckland. "I'm not James Bond. I don’t have the ability to do all the things they're claiming."

Reeves has also fingered five New Zealand colleagues at OneWorld for knowingly breaking America's Cup protocol rules. He has claimed in his court papers that these men - people he helped recruit it should be added - transferred confidential design and technical information from their previous campaigns to the new American syndicate.

The Herald article does not divulge why Reeves chose to front up with his version of events.

Perhaps the recent twist in this long running and ugly saga when Bill Trenkle of the Stars & Stripes campaign also filed a deposition stating Reeves tried to sell design and technical information to the New York Yacht Club challenge could well have been a catalyst.

Up until that point, an overwhelming majority of those involved in the scandal were Kiwi's.

Both Chris Dickson of Oracle Racing and David Barnes of GBR Challenge have long standing connections with Reeves stretching back to their early racing days.

Reeves and Dickson were once a formidable team in international dinghy racing, winning the double-handed world youth championship title in the early 1980s before moving onto the Olympic 470 class together.

The Herald article continues with Reeves' description of how they travelled "the world on shoestring budgets supplemented by the odd sports grant and
hanging out with up-and-coming yachties such as Russell Coutts and David Barnes".

The pair split up before the 1984 Olympic Games, but Reeves teamed up with Peter Evans (again in the 470) and subsequently beat Dickson to selection for the Los Angeles games.

Reeves suggested to the Herald that years of bitterness over the Olympic selection contributed (in part) to Dickson's claims.

In his interview Sean Reeves does not offer any other explanation as to why David Barnes or Bill Trenkle would make allegations against him.

After analysing his career with Team New Zealand, the feature draws Reeves to discuss his brief and ultimately very controversial 11 month stay at OneWorld .

The article explains that he left OneWorld because "previously streamed sailing and design teams suddenly 'exploded upwards' while he was shocked
by the intellectual property violations being committed and the unwillingness bosses to do anything about it".

The Herald continues: "Reeves says that at one stage it was 'a bit of a running joke' that OneWorld had so much of other syndicates' information".

"We had not only caught up to Team New Zealand - we had passed them," adds Reeves himself.

OneWorld, as expected, are completely dismissive of Reeves' explanations.

"Whilst we welcome the fact that Reeves has at last come forward and has spoken publicly we continue to be disappointed that he seems unable to remember the facts as they actually occurred," said OneWorld CEO Gary Wright."We believe it is time now to let this be resolved in the correct forum, namely
the US Courts".

There are likely to be many more twists before Wright's wishes come true and this case is finally unraveled in the United States court, not forgetting the America's Cup Arbitration Panel ruling on OneWorld's possible protocol violations.

No matter what the outcome, Reeves has already decided his professional reputation is "in tatters" thus the America's Cup career path which he had hoped would last for another 20 years is realistically over.

He is now training to become a professional tennis coach.

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