First step towards 2011

Stephane Kandler launches his campaign for the 34th America's Cup with two key appointments

K Challenge Team Principal Stephane Kandler has confirmed his plans for K Challenge to participate in the 34th America’s Cup with this morning’s announcement in Paris that Sebastien Col and Sebastien Josse are to run the sailing side of his next campaign.

“We want to build on the assets and the experience of K Challenge in the last Cup,” Kandler told thedailysail this morning. As a result the new K Challenge will combine a mix of people from their previous Areva Challenge campaign for the 32nd America's Cup and what Kandler terms ‘the new generation’. Other than the Sebastiens, Kandler will name no other names, but France is at present the leading nation in the ISAF Match Race ranking with three sailors – Mathieu Richard, Sebastien Col and Damien Iehl - in the top 10.



“We have no roles today, because it is too early and there are many things to be done,” Kandler continues. “And Sebastien Josse has the Vendee Globe and his IMOCA season next year and Sebastien Col will be on the match racing circuit and the RC 44. So they both will have their own experiences while working from time to time on the project. But basically we want to ‘give them the key of the truck’ as we say in France. We want to provide them with more experienced people in the Cup environment and in the management. We are finalising all these things in the next days."

Within the next week we can expect an announcement of the core of their design team. For the last campaign Bernard Nivelt was Principle Designer, with Dimitri Nicolopoulos, Design Team Coordinator, plus Sandrine Lescaudron working on the VPP and Guillaume Verdier.

“We must prepare some things on the design side,” says Kandler. “We have a lot of work to be done to choose the tools, so not designing but working on the methods. That will be our first goal and then we will start to contact people and talk with people for what I call the core team.”



Obviously since last June Kandler has been analysing the good and bad points of his last Areva Challenge campaign. Looking at the weaknesses of that he says: “We didn’t have a lack of money, but we didn’t arrive on time, especially the last part when we had to start building the boat. We lost six months in 2005, when we were ready to start building the boat and we had to wait for the sponsor to come in. That had a psychological effect as well on the team and it was very difficult. It was a hard time and we had to do everything in one year which was crazy - building the base, the boat, starting training with an old boat - lots of things which were not easy.”

In addition to this Kandler acknowledges that another weakness was in developing the speed of the boat, as they lacked experience in that area, something he will rectify this time around.

“Also I think we were not very good also on the sailing side - we never really found a good mix in the afterguard and it was very difficult,” he says. “Not that the people had no talent, but it was hard to make them work together for several reasons. I don’t blame anyone - it was just a fact that we didn’t manage to do that and I have a responsibility for that.”



For the 32nd America’s Cup France effectively fielded two teams. In addition to K Challenge, rechristened Areva Challenge when their nuclear sponsor came on board, there was China Team, that was the rebranded Le Defi. Since then Marc Pajor has returned to the Cup game with his announcement of the French Spirit Challenge for the 34th America’s Cup featuring ex-BMW Oracle afterguard Philippe Presti and Bertrand Pace.

So how does Pajot's announcement affect K Challenge? “For sure we present something different,” says Kandler. “We are not going to say we are going to win the Cup next time. We want to build on a new generation. We want to improve what we did with K Challenge. We want this time to have a budget from day one until the end. What I learned from the last campaign, is that even though if you don’t lack money if it doesn’t arrive at the right time it is so difficult to get performance. So my goal is to say ‘this time we need 20 million Euros to start the program and we will not start launching huge things before we get that because we cannot guarantee a good result unless we have that’. Over four years I think that is accessible for companies, and again we propose something different. Marc Pajot is doing something with his old friends, so it is good luck but it is a different thing.”

While traditionally French Cup campaigns have been wholly nationalistic affairs, K Challenge’s campaign last time around was largely French but brought in some foreigners, including American Cup veteran Dawn Riley, from the outset. Kandler says they will maintain this mix although for efficency reasons French will continue to be the principle language within the team. “With this new generation it is less of a problem. Seb Josse was in the Volvo, the only Frenchman on the boat. Seb Col is also used to that. The new generation is better at being international. On the boat for sure there will be a majority of French people but we know that in certain areas the good guys are from abroad.”

As to the present fiasco over the 33rd America’s Cup Kandler agrees it does not make life easy for challengers. However he does see some stability returning to the event. “We need to know the place and the date [for the 33rd AC], but even if they go back to court it can be decided very quickly. It is not a discussion of a multihull or the yacht club which is very technical. So I think that the 2011 goal is realistic - that is what we are planning on. But if it goes longer I think it is completely another story and we can forget about what we are talking about now.

“Right now I am concentrating in 2011. I hope it will be in Valencia because it will show a lot of respect to them - they continue to support the event and the teams that are there. We think it would be a pity not to thank them for that. And they made a big investment in our sport, probably the biggest investment in sailing for years. So I think it would be a good thing, but we are not going to decide that now. So for me it is not a perfect world, but I am used to that.”

There has been some talk of the challengers getting together to race their V5 boats prior to the introduction of the new AC90 monohull. As to the new boat while there seems to be some consensus between most of the parties involved in the Cup, Kandler is painfully aware that this can change on a whim.

“It is a problem of speculation: we have seen that at the last minute everything can change with these people, because honestly they are really acting like kids sometimes. So I think a new rule would be a good thing - I have nothing against the V5 boats but if we go back to that system for me it will always be the same you will always have the same one, two and three.” (Ie Alinghi, BMW Oracle and Team New Zealand).

“I was supporting this Grand Prix series, for sure and we can do that in 2009 and 2010. We can sail the V5 boat first and then go on the new boat because it would be more exciting for everyone. Even Oracle was seduced by the new boat. I hope we will go in that direction, although I hope some parameters will be changed so that no one has a big advantage when it starts. I would say that the trend is good.”

For K Challenge, as with the other challengers, the problem remains one for raising adequate sponsorship dollars at a time when the sole concrete news in the sport is one of billionaire bickering and court action while the location of the playing field is uncertain as is the date of the match and the equipment to be used.