How it all came right for K-Challenge

Skipper/helmsman Thierry Peponnet discusses their upward spiral and how they nearly snapped FRA 60 in two

The final day of Act 8 match racing in Trapani, proved one of the most unusual this year, the form book turned on its head with Alinghi beaten first by K-Challenge in Flight 10 - the first time the Swiss defenders on their super-quick SUI 75 have been outrun in a match race this year - and subsequently annihilated by Chris Dickson's BMW Oracle Racing team in the following flight.

Alinghi still came out top of the leaderboard to win Act 8, but their defeats and the sudden down-turn in the Swiss team's normally Audemars Piguet-precise performance left conspiracy theorists wondering if Brad Butterworth & co had done some crafty pre-race maths, realising that they could sacrifice these last two races and still come out on top whatever the outcome. (In fact if Luna Rossa had beaten BMW Oracle Racing, then the Italian team would have won). Was this the same team which on Sunday was at least a minute and a half behind following a main halyard strop breakage soon after the start, switched the turbo boosters on to overtake United Internet Team Germany within the course of a leg?

It is certainly true that the challengers have raised their game compared to Alinghi over the course of this season. Or maybe SUI 75 is genuinely sticky in the light 6-8 knot conditions experienced off Trapani yesterday? Yet this never appeared to be the case at the Acts in Valencia at the beginning of this year.

"No-one likes losing, but it was a light air day and the conditions were tough," Brad Butterworth rationalised at the end of play yesterday. "It shows you how well those teams can sail. Obviously we weren’t far enough ahead to secure the lead over K-Challenge downwind. They did a good job through the gybe and were going quite fast. We weren’t going that well and Thierry Peponnet sailed that race pretty well.”

But the real stars of Act 8 were K-Challenge. Stephane Kandler's team led by skipper Thierry Peponnet have been sailing exceptionally well this week - starting precisely and with confidence, making smart tactical calls around the course and showing minimal boat handling issues - in short a team that has not only put in the hours, but come together more than most.

Ironically Alinghi fell to the French team's FRA 60, the boat which as NZL 60 Butterworth and many of his fellow ex-Team New Zealanders at Alinghi developed when they successfully defended the America's Cup in 2000. But Alinghi's defeat was not the only upset K-Challenge caused this week in Trapani. On the first day of racing the French team also dispatched the mighty Emirates Team New Zealand, although perhaps is could be argued that the Kiwis lost this match when they found themselves on the wrong side of a major shift. Nonetheless a supposed underdog, K-Challenge proved in beating two of the 'big four' this week that their race wins have not been flukes.

While she pulled out of three races because of breakages, of the eight races they completed they won seven losing only to BMW Oracle Racing. "It is very positive for us," Thierry Peponnet told us, in understandably buoyant mood.

So how has it all started to come right for K-Challenge? "We feel better and better every day on the boat in terms of team work and afterguard communication," Peponnet continues. "We learned how to use the boat better every day. For a few weeks, we have had a feeling that we could be much better than how we sailed in the last Acts. It was great that we finally proved that we could be in the game."

K-Challenge have been swapping their afterguard around between the Acts this year. In Valencia Tanguy Cariou was tactician, while in Malmo former Team New Zealander Cameron Appleton was in this role. For Act 8 Sebastien Col has been calling tactics, with Cariou on strategy and Dutch meteorologist Wouter Verbraak navigating. The predominantly French line-up seems to have been a winner.

"When it comes to communication in the afterguard - when you need to make good tactical calls in just a few seconds, you need to be very reactive and for sure the communication with Sebastien Col is very good. It is more natural and easier," says Peponnet, who adds that he had never sailed with either Col or Cariou prior to them joining K-Challenge.

Sebastien Col was Melges 24 World Champion in 2004 and has been leading his own K-Challenge team on the match race circuit where is currently seventh in ISAF's World Ranking. Tanguy Cariou, like his skipper, is a former 470 World Champion (but lacks Peponnet's pair of Olympic medals in the class) and won the Tour Voile in 2001 as tactician. Since then has been tactician for Franck Cammas' near unbeatable Groupama trimarans. Wouter Verbraak worked shoreside as meteorologist with Knut Frostad's djuice dragons team in the last Volvo Ocean Race and has since established himself as one of the world's top navigator/meteorologists racing on or routing many leading race boats. Within K-Challenge he works on the meteorology with Fiona Campbell.



Also into the mix at the blunt end of the boat is up and coming French sailing star Nicolas Charbonnier, a four time 420 World Champion turned 470 sailor - K-Challenge's crew is to the 470 what +39's is to the Finn. Charbonnier, who now controls FRA 60's traveller, used to sail with Cariou in the 470 and has his sights set on Beijing in 2008. "So the communication and the confidence in terms of the wind shift and the wind strategy, works very well between them," says Peponnet of his afterguard. "I think we finally found a good balance between us and I don’t want to forget also the navigator Wouter Verbraak, who is doing his job very well."

Going towards the business end of the boat this week were three time America's Cup crewman Benoit Briand (mainsheet trimmer), and fellow trimmers Thierry Douillard and Carsten Schon. Grinders have been the familiar figures of Peter Merrington (aft) and Britain's own Jim Turner (main) and ex-Alinghi man Yann Maillet and Fred Lemaistre. Other former GBR Challengers in the crew are Gurnard's finest, Guy Salter (mid-bow) and mast/pitman George Skuodas who has been working alongside Albert Jacobsoone, a veteran of French Cup campaigns since 1983 and who was with Prada in 2003. This week American nipper Sean 'Doogie' Couvreux has been rotating on the bow with another former GBR Challenger Matt Cornwell.

Since Valencia early this summer Peponnet says the crew have been training hard and have been particularly concentrating on trying to improve their starts. "It was one point we had to improve and we did it. It was collective work, with the afterguard and all the crew, so I am very happy we did that and improved this part of our sailing which was probably was one of our weaknesses in Valencia. We also worked a lot on manoeuvres and coordination of the crew and this is very important to feel more confident, especially when you approach the bottom mark and you have to make a good choice for the manoeuvre. It is important to be in phase with the team, to be sure you can manage to do what you want."



While the afterguard may now be predominantly French, English speakers make up one third of the crew further forward on the boat. "We worked a lot on the communication all together," continues Peponnet. "It is not easy to work with a mixed team, especially for the French trying to speak English on board - for us it is a little bit new. But I am very happy with Roast Beefs! They have a very good team spirit and this is important. It is good to mix Frogs and Roast Beefs finally! I think we are in a good way, on a positive curve and we have to keep going for the next Act 9 fleet race."

One of the most significant components of the team this year has been their steed. Racing the former NZL 60 in some ways seems almost a crime, the 2000 Cup winner marking the zenith of the Coutts-led Team New Zealand era and thus a major piece of America's Cup history. Despite being a generation older than almost all the 2003 youngsters she has been racing against this year, the boat is still proving to have exceptionally long legs. "This is really a good boat. We have good balance in all conditions," says her helmsman.

Most telling is that Peponnet says the sweet spot of FRA 60's performance is in 7-12 knots of wind, exactly the conditions they experienced yesterday. "It is when we can get the best performance from this boat compared to the last generation. As soon as the wind is going up to 12-20 knots we still have some problems, but I’m sure we can work on them and learn how to use it to be sure we get 100% of the potential of the boat." And yet he is pleased with how the boat and her crew have held her own in the stronger conditions they have experienced this week, particularly against the Germans and the Swedes.

In the race aginst SUI 75, Peponnet says he did not expect to match the Swiss team, especially downwind "We were quite fast compared to them. That was a big surprise. In all the other conditions they are quite ahead and they have good speed compared to the others. I think they managed to keep this lead compared to the challengers maybe above 9 knots of wind, but it is more difficult for a leading yacht to control their opponent when the wind is light and shifty and, particularly yesterday, it was hard to stay in front. You were seeing a lot of changes in the lead during the races - even with 300m left you could come back and regain the lead."

Peponnet and the team were obviously ecstatic to have beaten the Swiss team. "We could not believe it. At the finishing line it was unbelievable. We have been working for this kind of success for 13 months, so it was a very good moment for us."

While FRA 60 has performed well this week, it has come at a price. Against Shosholoza they broke the jib cunningham and that caused the destruction of the bottom 10m of their headfoil. Then against Victory Challenge they were neck and neck at the leeward gate and had just come up on to the wind when they broke the lashing between the masthead hook and the jib. "We had to drop the jib, send the bowman to the top of the mast to get the halyard again and come back down and rebuild the lashing. So it took three minutes to get the jib back up again".

Then just prior to their race against Luna Rossa they experienced the most serious problem yet when the deck began to buckle in an ominous Young America/One Australia sort of way. "The boat nearly broke in two pieces - in the middle of the deck it was curving," says Peponnet. "So we were afraid to lose the boat if we kept sailing in 20 knots of wind." They retired.



The problem with upgrading Version 4 boats to Version 5 is that while it is relatively easy to turbo some aspects of the boat - taking a ton out of the bulb and adding horsepower to the rig - it is much harder to calculate how much extra material is required to beef up the hull and internal structure. "By adding roach in the jib and the main, and a new mast which is more stiff at the top, you are pushing the boat and the hull is not following sometimes," says Peponnet. "You have to reinforce the hull which we did already last winter, but some parts of the boat sometimes are still not strong enough, especially in these waves. So it is very hard to be 100% confident with the boat."

On Monday night the K-Challenge shore crew worked late into the night reinforcing the deck using some 2m lengths of aluminium plundered from the sail loft and attached beneath the deck and pieces of plywood screwed down to the deck. It was with this lashed together deck repair that they beat Alinghi and then Desafio Espanol yesterday. "It was just to reinforce it for the day. We were lucky not to have too much wind. Now we have to fix it properly with carbon. So we’ll do this job in the next two days," says Peponnet.

Carnage there may have been at this regatta, but getting hold of NZL 60 was an extremely smart move by the French team. It was with ideas developed from this boat that Coutts & Co left Team New Zealand to create SUI 64 and 75 at their new home at Alinghi. Following his team's defeat at the hands of the French Grant Dalton must be questioning why he sold them the boat.

And the best may yet be to come: NZL 60 will prove extremely valuable to the K-Challenge design team led by Bernard Nivelt. "It is a fantastic base to start a new design and to be able to compare with the last generation of boats and it has given us a lot of ideas," says Peponnet. "But there is a smaller box rule for the next Cup, so you can’t play and so much with the weight of the boat or sail area, so I think the boats will be closer to each other next time."

An herein lies the problem for us commentators. While the Acts this year have given us some indication to a form guide among the 12 America's Cup team, come the 2006 season when most teams are expected to be fielding their new Version 5 boats for the first time and will have had more opportunity to train over the winter and spring, we can expect the form guide to change completely.