$120 million enough to mount serious challenge, says Riley

By JULIE ASH

Dawn Riley believes a budget of $120 million will be enough to give her French syndicate, K-Challenge, a realistic chance of success in the next America's Cup.

K-Challenge are one of the first syndicates to express a serious interest in putting a team together for the next event.

The challenge was set up by French-German Ortwin Kandler, an Airbus Industrie pioneer. Kandler is the syndicate head, his son, Stephan, is the general manager and Riley is the team manager.

But while two of the challengers in the recent Louis Vuitton Cup had budgets of around $180 million, Riley said K-Challenge have a target budget of $110-$120 million, which she said was enough to mount a serious challenge.

"This budget gives a realistic chance of victory and the ability to secure a united group of strong French and international talent," she said.



Said Stephan Kandler: "Until today France has never been able to field a challenge with enough time to pull together all the ingredients for victory. It is important to be operational very quickly to begin the design process as well as extensive crew training and boat testing."

Based in the French city of Marseille, the syndicate will wait until the end of this cup to announce which yacht club they will be affiliated with.

However, they did reveal it is a famous yacht club in Paris, which means it is likely to be the Yacht Club de France.

So far only a few sailors have been signed in the co-ed team. Among those are French Olympic champion Thierry Peponnet and prominent French sailor Nicolas Charbonnier.

"We have been sailing for the past year on IC 45s and 50-footers so we have a sailing team up and running,' said Riley. "We are struggling because everybody else hasn't decided if they are going to go again or not. So it is bit of a game of cat and mouse at the moment."

Asked if the team intended pursuing Team New Zealand's Frenchman Bertrand Pace, Riley said it wasn't fair to be discussing contracts with sailors who were still involved in the regatta.

"The sailors are not the most urgent people to sign up. It's the designers and sponsorships which are."

Riley said initially she intended not to sail on the boat but now wasn't so sure.

"A year ago I said I wouldn't be on the boat, but I love sailing too much."

A design team has also been confirmed and will meet for the first time next month.

Yesterday, the team announced its first technical sponsor, the French nuclear energy agency CEA, which will provide access to its super computer for simulation and weather modelling.

Riley said the syndicate would not be the challenger of record, who are responsible for helping organise the challenger series.

K-Challenge may be one of three French challengers for the next cup.

Le Defi have said they are keen to return and French multihull sailor Loick Peyron has also expressed an interest in setting up a challenge.

But for K-Challenge, Riley said the plan was to buy boats and get the design team working before holding trials for the sailors later in the year.

Continuous coverage of today's America's Cup race will begin on nzherald.co.nz at 12.30pm.

nzherald.co.nz/americascup

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