K-CHALLENGE KEEPS THE PACE:

Whatever the final result will be, this decision can occur any time now, and will allow to set the date of the next multi challengers America’s Cup, shall a one to one America’s Cup be raced or not before (the Deed of Gift Challenge between Alinghi and BMW Oracle Racing).

K-Challenge continues its preparation in order to be ready when the race against time for the next multi-challengers America’s Cup will start, as everything will go fast once the new schedule will be released. The teams which will already be operational on the methodological, technical, sailing and logistics aspects will be the ones able to compete with real performance chances.

As announced in March 2008, the French team will now start a high level sailing project, in order to create the essential common experience between its team members.

This second phase comes up after having worked a lot this year for the launch of a team based on the new generation (key members’ detection, start of the common work and methodology validation). The basics of the team’s sailing programme were also put in place, thanks to Sebastien Col’s participation to the World Match Racing Tour (now 2nd of the general ranking after the Danish Open), and to the international RC44 circuit (Sebastien is the leader of the circuit after 4 events). Sebastien Col particularly focused on the detection of his future crew members, but also on getting as much experience as possible on other highly technical boats, like the TP52 and GP42.

K-Challenge will introduce its 2009 season programme mid-October. A press conference will be held in Paris, with all the team’s key members and some America’s Cup personalities.