Secrets claim riles Team NZ

By ANNE BESTON

Members of Team New Zealand are deeply upset by an allegation that former teammates may have divulged secrets to rival syndicates.

The Herald understands Team New Zealand members are struggling to come to terms with the possibility that crucial design information may have gone to competitors during the team's break-up two years ago.

Team NZ chief executive Ross Blackman said yesterday that it was difficult to accept that any of the allegations might be true. All former members of Team NZ had signed confidentiality agreements binding for life.

"So if the allegations prove to be correct, Team NZ will pursue every possible legal action against any individual involved," he said.

New Zealanders alleged by Auckland lawyer Sean Reeves to be involved in passing on secret information were reluctant to talk.

They are named in US court papers by Reeves, who left Team NZ in 2000 and lured others with him to the One World syndicate.

Reeves' documents name seven men from prominent syndicates who were involved, including five New Zealanders.

One is alleged to have given One World design information for a revolutionary mast at a meeting in San Francisco.

The suit alleges the information given by this man allowed One World to duplicate a design in three months that had taken Team New Zealand three years to develop.

The man told the Herald yesterday to be "very cautious" about what it did with information on the allegations against him because "someone is going to be burned".

Another man is alleged to have had internal fittings designs from Team NZ at One World Challenge. He denied the allegations yesterday.

He said Reeves was "quite mistaken" and it was "a shame" he was making the allegations.

"He seems to be imagining things or fabricating things or just misunderstanding what's gone on," the former Team NZ member said.

"I believe my name is there in the documents but I believe anyone who published anything about me would be taking a tremendous risk of being up for defamation, including yourself."

The other men named in Reeves' papers could not be contacted but some are understood to be in New Zealand with new teams preparing for the next cup.

Reeves, a former Olympic sailor from Devonport, has gone on the offensive after One World accused him of peddling cup secrets.

It filed a writ against him in the King County Superior Court in Seattle last year accusing him of trying to sell $6 million of its secret design and technical plans to rival syndicate Oracle Racing through old friend Chris Dickson.

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