A FERRY officer accused of manslaughter of three sailors due to gross negligence has indicated that he will deny the charges. The three were found dead after their yacht disappeared off the Isle of Wight .

Michael Hubble, 61, attended a preliminary hearing at Winchester Crown Court on the charges relating to the deaths of James Meaby, 36, Jason Downer, 35, and Rupert Saunders, 36, from the yacht Ouzo between August 20 and 23 last year.

Hubble of Capel-le-Ferne, Folkestone, Kent, was the officer of the watch on the P&O car ferry, Pride of Bilbao, when it is alleged the 37,500-ton vessel was involved in an incident which led to the disappearance of the Ouzo in the English Channel and the deaths of the men.

In a brief hearing, defence counsel Oliver Saxby indicated that Hubble would plead not guilty to the three counts at the next hearing.

Mr Justice Royce adjourned the case until March 30 for a plea and case management hearing at Winchester Crown Court.

Hubble was granted unconditional bail. The Ouzo left Bembridge on the Isle of Wight on August 20 to sail to Devon for the Dartmouth Regatta but it never arrived.

The bodies of all three men were found in the sea off the Isle of Wight a few days later.

The 25ft sailfish sloop they were sailing has never been found, and no alarm was raised from it prior to its disappearance.

Hubble was employed as an agency worker on the Pride of Bilbao at the time of the alleged offences. The car ferry was en route from Portsmouth to Bilbao in Spain at the same time as Ouzo disappeared.

An inquest, which was opened and adjourned into the deaths of the three men, heard that two of them had time to inflate their lifejackets.

The hearing was told Mr Meaby, from Tooting, south London, and Mr Downer, from Kent, were found with their lifejackets manually inflated.

The third crew member, Mr Saunders, also from Tooting, who owned and skippered the yacht, was wearing a lifejacket which had automatically inflated.

The body of Mr Meaby was discovered in the sea ten miles south of Nab Tower on August 22 and the bodies of Mr Downer and Mr Saunders were located south of St Catherine's Point a day later.