Sailing: McCaw's syndicate penalised

A point down before they even start, the Seattle-based OneWorld syndicate, funded by the telecoms billionaire Craig McCaw and challenging for the America's Cup, was yesterday punished in Auckland for a breach of the rules.

They had admitted receiving design and technical information which belonged to other teams, but the judgment by a five-man arbitration panel took nine months to deliver as they were afraid of being sued and demanded indemnity.

The panel not only fell far short of disqualifying the team skippered by Peter Gilmour, but stated clearly that OneWorld is fully eligible to take part in the Louis Vuitton Cup elimination series which starts on 1 October and that, if successful, they would be eligible to challenge the defenders, Team New Zealand, next February.

The case centred around accusations that a former TNZ lawyer, Sean Reeves, had supplied information on their design and structural technology programme when he moved to OneWorld.