Aucklandgate: The latest accusations

Team New Zealand accuse OneWorld of more foul play.

The following letter is published as received.
Dear Editor,

We are now seeing the unsightly underbelly of the America's Cup as we at OneWorld, are accused of stealing and using secret design information.

For those of you that may not know it should be pointed out that we voluntarily made an Application to the America's Cup Arbitration Panel back in December 2001.

It had come to our attention that there had been inadvertent violations of the Americas Cup Protocol during the time that OneWorld's rules advice was being provided by the ex-Team New Zealand Rules Advisor. We were soon to discover that this Rules Advisor himself had bought what we assume to be misappropriated information on to the OneWorld shore base. One has to ask, was he supposed to have this information? We don't think so. Was he supposed to bring it to the OneWorld offices? The answer was clearly no.

We decided to bring these Protocol breaches to the attention of the Americas Cup Arbitration Panel. This we did immediately, completely and thoroughly.

It has been suggested by Russell Green (Team New Zealand's Rules Advisor) that we have not fully disclosed the information that we have. Our answer?

We have disclosed everything . Our voluntary disclosures resulted from an exhaustive study that we performed many months ago. There was no new information in the Team New Zealand filing last week. There was no new evidence to the contrary.

Why has Team New Zealand made no effort to take action against their ex Rules Advisor? Over the past year Team Dennis Conner representing the New York Yacht Club, GBR Challenge and Oracle Racing have all been approached by this guy, trying to sell them Team New Zealand secrets. To date we understand that Team New Zealand has yet to take any action.

It seems that the main accusation made against OneWorld in the latest Team New Zealand Submission, is that the first design package Laurie Davidson delivered to us in August of 2000, contained the plans of NZL57 and/or NZL60, and that we have subsequently used these plans in our Design process.

This is of course untrue. Laurie is an internationally acclaimed yacht designer. He was responsible for the design of NZL57 and NZL 60. He has no need to cheat. He also has no reason to want to reproduce 2000 Americas Cup boats for us. Our hope of course is that our 2003 boats will be faster.

In any case, Laurie could draw NZL 57 or NZL 60 from memory to within 2 centimetres. He has no need for plans. I would like to show how certain we at OneWorld are that the Plans of NZL 57 and NZL 60 did not form a part of that original eight lines plans delivered to us back in August 2000 as part of a design package. Laurie is willing to sit down at anytime with Tom Schnackenberg (Head of the Team New Zealand Design Team) and allow Tom to view those eight lines plans. If the design package includes the actual lines of NZL 57 or NZL 60 , then Team New Zealand is right. The Panel will be left in a position where it could only find against OneWorld. Does Team New Zealand truly believe that OneWorld has the lines plans of NZL 57 and NZL 60 in the original Design Package? If so, they have nothing to fear and I will expect to hear from them shortly.

I do not expect to get that call.

Submissions such as this, based on allegations from third parties, along with the subsequent reports that appear in the media have a devastating effect on peoples lives.

Behind the face of every Team, are individuals with wives, with husbands and of course with children , many of whom attend Auckland schools. Vexatious submissions with no real evidence have the potential to affect each and every one of us. With the help of our teammates, we have the stamina and fortitude to put these daily issues to one side and continue on with the tasks at hand but for our wives, husbands and children, all of whom are happy to call Auckland their home, it is not such an easy thing to do.

Please remember, the Team New Zealand who won the Americas Cup in 1995 and successfully defended it in 2000 are, for the most part, no longer part of the Team New Zealand of today. In 1995, these honorable individuals, lead of course by Sir Peter Blake, wrested the Cup from the Americans - Auckland and New Zealand were changed forever. Rarely does one man ever do great deeds alone without the support of a great team. A large proportion of Sir Peter's team are now at Oracle, OneWorld and Alinghi. Their work for their country was done. For them it was time to move on and let the younger guys in. It was also time to think of their futures and their families by taking on new challenges and better paying positions with other Teams. These are some of the same individuals whose lives are now being affected by these allegations, rumors and lies.

I think New Zealand owes them more than that.
Gary Wright
CEO
OneWorld Challenge