But between a state-of-the-art navigation simulator, a team of sailors shining on the SailGP circuit and a boat being designed, "everything is in place to make up for the delay," said the co-director of the challenge, Stéphane Kandler.

QUESTION: Where is the team two months after officially launching this challenge to the Cup defender, Team New Zealand?

ANSWER: "We work on things that don't necessarily show. We have finished preparing the construction of the boat that will be launched at the end of the month in Vannes and we have put everything in place for our arrival at the beginning of July at our base of operations in Barcelona. We should be able to start sailing on the competition water this summer, with our AC40, a test monohull. This AC40 will also be used by all teams entered on the Cup during pre-regattas from September. The boat used during the official races, an AC75, we should be able to launch it next spring."

Q: The Swiss of Alinghi are already settled in Barcelona, the Italians of Luna Rossa launched a prototype of AC75 last October, how do you plan to catch up with the other challengers?

A: "Just because you don't have a boat yet doesn't mean you can't train. Like other teams, we developed our own simulator in Lorient. We modeled the cockpit of the future boat and, with virtual reality glasses, the sailors prepare for it in an environment identical to regattas. This simulator also allows you to do development tests on the future boat! We certainly have fewer hours of sailing than other teams, but our crew is already performing."

Q: What does this French challenge look like, on the water and behind the scenes?

French team skipper Quentin Delapierre attends the press conference in Paris presenting the French challenge for the 2024 America's Cup, which will take place in Barcelona, February 2, 2023 © Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP/Archives

A: "We are currently about twenty working on the project, mostly based in Brittany. And we're going to grow to forty people starting in the summer. A good part of the challenge is currently mobilized on SailGP, a very competitive circuit where teams compete in F50 (foiling catamaran that can reach more than 90 km / h, editor's note). This is particularly the case for helmsman Quentin Delapierre, who will be at the controls of our AC75, and Kevin Peponnet. They will be the backbone of our team on the water, and that's good because they had a great season and accumulated experience at the highest level (Editor's note: La France is ranked 3rd before the SailGP finals in May in San Francisco). On land, we can count on the navigator Franck Cammas, who is in charge of the performance. He must be the link between the boat's development team and the sailors. It is also a way to catch up, to take advantage of our excellent sailors and engineers, whom the world envies us in the field of sailing."

Q: The France have never won the Cup, what is the goal in Barcelona?

French skipper Franck Cammas attends the press conference, held in Paris, to present the French challenge for the next America's Cup, in 2024 in Barcelona, February 2, 2023 © Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP/Archives

A: "Personally, this is my 3rd campaign (after 2001 and 2007, editor's note). We want to build something that can win. If we didn't have the means to win, I wouldn't have agreed to embark on the adventure. For this, we bought part of the design of Team New Zealand's AC75, which won the last Cup and we are now making our own changes to this design. The idea was to start from a known and already efficient base to, again, limit the time of research and development upstream. With this boat and this team, we can have ambitions! After that, winning the Cup can be a bad turn or a bad start, but everything is in place to get there."

© 2023 AFP