KEY POINTS:
''Espionage is expensive, and it throws a black mark on sailing. I am personally against it," said Bill Koch on May 17, 1992, after his victory in the America's Cup.
The billionaire's syndicate, America3, had just defeated Italy's Il Moro di Venezia challenge and many of those listening
to him couldn't believe their ears.
Koch and his team had riled their opponents with their heavy-handed spying tactics. In his quest for information, Koch relied heavily on Guzzini, a 9.15m spy boat.
It looked innocent enough, apart from the Darth Vader-like satellite dish on its foredeck.
Was Guzzini the real deal or a decoy? Many suspect a decoy.
In the same regatta, a scuba diver was caught poking around under New Zealand's NZL20. Not just some random diver, this was a Navy Seal, sent to get photos of the keel.
Unfortunately for him, a couple of members of the New Zealand team saw him and he was escorted out of the water, off the base and down to the local authorities.
That year, 1992, was a high-water mark for accusations of cup espionage. The rules were tightened after the event, making it clear what was and was not permitted.
But the game has changed again. In the 2007 cup, teams have more freedom to hone in on their opponents' weapons.
Spying is not even called spying any more. It's "reconnaissance".
"We used to think spying was sinister and controversial," said BMW Oracle Racing business manager Russell Green, a New Zealander.
"Now we call it reconnaissance and it is just part of your programmes."
Green said every team did it. Most had two or three people who were theoretically "spies".
"Everybody is looking at each other to see what they are doing. Particularly at their rigs. Every team has somebody with a camera with a long lens.
"When I was in the Foredeck Club [a high-rise hospitality building in Valencia] recently, where you are not supposed to take photos from, I saw a couple of Team New Zealand guys. One had a backpack on and when our mast went past they whipped out the camera and snap, snap."
Teams can photograph their rivals from land. They can also photograph them on the water but must be 200m away and in the race area.
A lot can be determined from photographs, especially those that are shot from above which reveal the layout of the deck and location of mast, rudder etc.
Green said that when Oracle trained in Auckland over the summer, people would stand at the end of the Viaduct taking pictures.
Because Oracle were out of the Valencia "race area" it meant they and Team New Zealand couldn't photograph each other but clearly there were "others" keen to get pictures of them.
"You'd see guys standing right on the edge with big, long, lenses taking pictures of the New Zealand boat. Team New Zealand used to try to get the security guards to try to stop them.
"That wasn't us. That would have been Alinghi, I guess.
"I think as a team we are less aggressive than other teams. Team New Zealand is quite aggressive. They follow us whenever we are training. We keep an eye on what is going on but we sort of think we should get on with our own thing.
"Alinghi are pretty sophisticated, they always have been. They don't need to worry so much as they have got the challengers series and the television to keep an eye on what's going on. But in every part of their programme they have reconnaissance."
This is lawyer Green's fifth cup. He was an umpire in 1992, the rules adviser for Tag Heuer in 1995 and then for Team New Zealand in 2000 and 2003.
In the last cup, he tried to protect the "hula".
"The reconnaissance of the challengers, they knew about it before it came out.
"They put a lot of pressure on the measurer, who changed his way at the last minute, and the gap had to be opened up and that was the end of the effectiveness of the hula.
"In reality we knew that we couldn't protect it."
But Green concedes Team New Zealand had something else last time which was never talked about.
"It is still not talked about."
Which proves: "Secrets can be protected."
