Stephane Kandler on the 34th America's Cup

All4One is based in the home of multihulls, France, and its aerospace capital, Toulouse

Over the last few weeks we have been talking to various high profile individuals from both inside and outside of the America’s Cup to gather their views on Russell Coutts’ radical developments with the 34th event.

In 2007 Frenchman Stephane Kandler headed K-Challenge, renamed Areva Challenge where Sebastien Col was helmsman. In October last year Kandler formed an alliance with Jochen Schuemann in the Franco-German All4One. This year the team has been competing on the Audi MedCup with Audi A1 powered by All4One as well as in the Louis Vuitton Trophy series.

“The most important news is that there will be a yearly World Championship,” says Kandler of the new Cup developments. “I think we launched that with the Louis Vuitton Trophy and for me that is the most important thing, because we are a more commercial team than the others probably and for us the possibility of more racing and adding sport value to what we are doing regarding our preparation for the America’s Cup, is important.” All4One will be one of the teams competing in the final Louis Vuitton Trophy event in Dubai next month.

Kandler says that the America’s Cup going multihull he finds exciting, but just because they are a part-French team - France holding most of the world’s multihull technology cards - doesn’t necessarily mean they have that much of an advantage: “For sure the fact that it is a multihull from my point of view is very exciting. It brings new blood in and it also provides an opportunity for the teams to start at the same level. I am a personal believer that whatever the boat is, the most difficult part of the America’s Cup is to have a good group of people on board. This is what we wanted to achieve with All4One and we have that group. On top of that some of the guys on board already have some experience in multihulls.

“It’s true in France we have a lot of multihull experience, but I don’t think that is enough to build a good AC campaign. An AC campaign is much more complicated, but Jochen [Schuemann] has won it twice in one of the best teams [Alinghi]. I created a team in 2007 so we have quite a lot of experience in team management which is important. I don’t think Team New Zealand will change their crew because it’s going multihull.”

Saying this, they, like all the other potent Cup challengers are looking at how they can gain their team the maximum amount of practice in multihulls, be that in Extreme 40s or in ORMA 60s.

Perhaps a greater advantage for the All4One team given the move to a new solid wingsail catamaran, is the Kandler family’s long business association with the aerospace industry and their being based in Toulouse, its French epi-centre. “I think the fact that I live in Toulouse where Airbus has its headquarters means I hope we have a chance to convince them. We have a lot of connections in the aerospace industry and we are going to see if they are interested to support the program on the technical side and on the financial side as well.” says Stephane.

Kandler likes the AC34 being held in 2013: “That is good commercially, it makes it cheaper, but it is also a year when there are no big events and it would have been very difficult to fight in 2014 not only against a World Cup, but a World Cup in Brazil.”

“It is true that there are a lot of open questions and decisions to be made, to keep costs down and I think there are many ways to reduce the cost still in a way that wouldn’t affect the results. That is something we can work on with all the teams and let’s hope we can have a real discussion between all the challengers when we know them, to move on and define clear rules.

“For the professionalism it is a good sign. It is still a difficult game. There is still a short time to be ready. Certain things could have been made simpler, but now we have to discuss them. But there is a rule and it has to start somewhere.”

With All4One being a Franco-German campaign they will also need to establish whether it will be a French of German yacht club through which they challenge. Generally Kandler says the arrangement is working well. His father Ortwin, also a keen yachtsman, was born in Germany. “The AC is now about putting people from different nationalities together so for us it is an advantage. For sure we will have to choose whether we are French or German. We will have to choose a yacht club. But Oracle and Alinghi and Artemis – where are the Swedes, the Americans, etc. Everyone talks about this every time...”

Compared to the opposition, a bonus for All4One, says Kandler is that they already have a team up and running, and unlike some of their competitors they won’t be starting from scratch with their campaign. “We have a design team working together. We have a group that is working. We are one of the existing, working teams which is already an advantage.”