K-Challenge heads for San Fran

French America's Cup campaign to take part in Golden Gate Cup

The K-Challenge will represent France on 5-8 September at the Golden Gate Cup at Oracle BMW Racing’s invitation. The two teams will also train from 1-4 September.

The Golden Gate Cup is a fleet race on IACC boats on San Francisco Bay. It is a part of The Challenge Series, the only regularly scheduled IACC racing at this time. Seven teams including Alinghi are expected for this event.

The K-Challenge team will be a combination of the French who officially joined the K-Challenge last June, sailors from the K-Challenge 2002 season and some potential future team members.

John Cutler (four America’s Cups, Oracle 2003) will be at helm, and Thierry Peponnet (2 America’s Cups (1995 and 2000) and double Olympic medalist) will be his tactician.

Among the crew will be: Fabrice Blondel and Romain Trouble, both of whom have sailed two America’s Cups and both motivated to improve on their previous performances. Among those who sailed with the K-Challenge for the 2002 season are: Thierry Fouchier (AC French challenge in 2000), Benoit Briand (three America’s Cup) and Teva Plichart, who has just won the Tour de France a la Voile.

In addition Hartwell Jordan (Prada 2003), Nic Clarke (Oracle 2003), Carl Barkow (America True 2000), John Ziskind (Oracle 2003, America True 2000) and Chris Winston (Team New Zealand 2003) will join the crew.

Dawn Riley will also be on board with Frenchman Sylvain Barrielle who sailed in 2002 with K-Challenge, and has been living and sailing in the San Francisco Bay area for four years. These two will add to the local knowledge.

K-Challenge will sail USA-49, ex-AmericaOne from Paul Cayard’s America’s Cup 2000 campaign. Though she is a 2000 generation boat and won’t be competitive against the 2003 generations boats, it will allow the team to sail together and K-Challenge hopes to have its own 2002/3 generation boat by the end of the year.

The K-Challenge will race under the colors of Le Cercle de la Voile de Paris. "Our participation in this event is very important to us as it will also allow us to show our know-how and help our potential partners and sponsors, with whom we are in serious discussions, to see what the America’s Cup is all about," says Stephane Kandler, K-Challenge's General Manager.

"We can demonstrate that this team has the organisational skills and is making necessary preparations to win the America’s Cup. Today, we along with Alinghi, Oracle BMW Racing and Team New Zealand are the only teams presenting a concrete project. We are moving forward, and will be making some major announcements by the end of September."