First Telefonica reaches Alicante

Antonov images plus news of two more crewmen

As we wrote in our interview with Bouwe Bekking recently, so the first of the two Farr designed Telefonica sisterships, Telefonica Black, has arrived in Alicante, flown in by Antanov 124 up from her builder, Southern Ocean Marine, leaving Auckland at 0400GMT on 2 June and taking three days to complete the journey with stops in Indonesia and Azerbaijan, She finally touched down in Alicante today at 07.00 GMT.

Five trucks and over 40 people including airport staff, shore crew and police were on hand to unload the hull. A crane will now transport the boat from the airport to the training camp in Alicante where she will be fitted, ready for test sailing.

With the arrival of their first boat (the second is due from King Marine in Valencia in two to three weeks, so the team has trickled out more news of their sailing squad. This includes Spanish Olympic gold medallists Xabi Fernández and Jordi Calafat. Fernandez, is Iker Martinez' crew in the 49er in which they have won two world championships - they will be competing in the Olympics in Beijing later this summer. Fernandez was also part of the movistar team in the last round the world race. Calafat, a former 470 Gold medallist, was with Alinghi for the last America's Cup.

More Antonov pics on the following pages...