Le Defi plan future

French America's Cup team looks to 2003

The French America's Cup team, Le Defi, semi-finalists in 2000, have been plotting the way forward to 2003 while trying to learn the lessons from 2000. They feel they have a more structured project with a greater and more adequate budget, targeted at 30 million Euros (about £20 million) - still modest in comparison to the big spenders.
Le Defi now has the cooperation of the French Sailing Federation (FFV) and will be working to bring in more talent from outside the current nucleus - and they could be foreigners as well as French. They are putting together a team of designers to build two new IACC boats, and this team currently includes; Daniel Andrieu, Peter Van Oossanen, Bernard Nivelt and Philippe Pallu de la Barrière. They are also backed by several French technology companies.