Sailing: Teams prepare for legal battle

Three down, one to go and both barrels are being loaded not on the water but ashore as Dennis Conner's Stars & Stripes battles for its America's Cup life.

Conner's men took another drubbing from the OneWorld Challenge of Seattle yesterday to go 3-0 down in the Louis Vuitton Cup quarter-final repêchage best of seven. However, the men burning the midnight oil were not boatbuilders but a phalanx of lawyers as they prepare their case, claiming that OneWorld possessed and used boat design secrets taken from other teams, for an international jury this weekend.

Team New Zealand confirmed yesterday that they have been approached to provide witnesses and would be happy to respond. This was news to OneWorld, though TNZ said they would be ready to help either side.

As other syndicate lawyers – GBR Challenge included – are seeing if they can benefit by saying their campaigns were materially prejudiced, if OneWorld were to be disqualified, there were also growing hints that the man at the centre of the mess, the New Zealand lawyer and sacked OneWorld rules expert Sean Reeves, may be prepared to defy a US Court injunction and give evidence in person.

The jury has said it does not want a re-run of an earlier case heard by the five-man arbitration panel, which led to a one-point penalty being imposed in the round robin. But it said that because the panel is due here at the end of next week it would defer to their deliberations.