Yachting: Undaunted French set course for next time

By SUZANNE McFADDEN

Le Defi France want to try out their new Kiwi-made bow against a Kiwi America's Cup boat.

The French ripped into their Cup yacht, Sixieme Sens, with chainsaws yesterday - cutting off its nose to replace it with a new bow.

Once the boat is rebuilt next week, Le Defi want to test it out against another Cup boat, even if it is the defender, who have already extended an invitation.

Said young French designer Juan Kouyoumdjian: "Our position is that we will sail with the challengers first.

"But if they don't want to, I'm sure we would be very happy to sail with Team New Zealand.

"The approach in our campaign is very much in line with the way New Zealand campaigns have been and are. We would love to sail against them.

"A lot of people have shown their interest in our speed. A lot of them would like our speed downwind."

Even though the French have been knocked out of the regatta, they are keeping a full team in Auckland until March to continue to develop their orange-and-blue boat.

Yesterday they sliced 4m off the front of the yacht. The old u-shaped bow will be replaced with a v-shape -- a carbon-fibre nose built in New Zealand with New Zealand materials.

Kouyoumdjian said the new shape would allow the boat to cut through the waves of the Hauraki Gulf easier. "It should increase the performance in choppy conditions, which was our big problem. "We decided to do it a long time ago - it was designed in October. But with all the changes we made to the boat we never found the time for this one.

"It's very nice that even though we are out of the Cup, our sponsors have allowed us to carry on and keep our thoughts going.

"This has to be our starting point for next time. Changing the bow now has to be proof that we have the will to carry on."

The French laugh that when they came to New Zealand in August they could only afford the smallest base in the Cup village. But today they have three bases - they use the vacated Spanish and Hawaiian lots to continue work on the boat.