America's Cup: "We are dreamers, we are doers" - France's "Orient Express" christened

The passionate sailing nation of France has never been able to win the America's Cup. Although it was first launched in 1970 and was the only nation besides the USA to compete in every edition until 2007, neither Marcel Bich's first "France" with Louis Noverraz, Popie Delfour and Eric Tabarly nor any of the subsequent campaigns were able to bring the oldest international trophy in the sporting world to France. That is about to change.

Baptised: France's beacon of hope

The French team will enter the Cup battle as a late campaign, having only started in spring 2022, and as outsiders with the smallest budget. They have perhaps half the budget of the Kiwis and more or less a third of the budget of the others, the team boss reckons. Nevertheless, there are factors that they have in their favour. One is the new boat. Unlike the other four challengers, the French have not developed their boat for the America's Cup themselves, but have made use of the opportunity to buy a design package from the New Zealand Cup defenders. However, they fitted the relevant systems themselves and developed them further. Where you can't see it, the New Zealand and French boats will also differ from each other.

With Team New Zealand's grassroots work, we have the opportunity to develop a boat that really has a chance." Stephan Kandler

The exchange between the Kiwi developers and the French team was completed when construction of the boat began. After that, no more data was allowed to change teams. It was and is an ideal situation for the French America's Cup latecomers, as team boss Stephan Kandler explains, who is deliberately driving his second Cup campaign alongside Bruno Dubois with dual leadership. His conviction: "With Team New Zealand's groundwork, we have the opportunity to develop a boat that really has a chance."

The hopeful "Orient Express" was christened in Barcelona on 29 May and is set to cause surprises in the challenger round of the 37th America's Cup. "As a brand, we are dreamers, we are doers" - with these words, Gilda Perez Alvarado set the team motto. The CEO of Orient Express and chief strategist of the Accor Group christened the boat and burst the magnum champagne bottle together with skipper Quentin Delapierre. Delapierre had previously held the naming ceremony together with the two skippers for the Youth America's Cup and the Puig Women's Americas Cup: Enzo Belanger and Manon Audinet.

Maximum performance for the America's Cup

The French projectile looks classy, stylish and very French. But what will it be able to achieve in the America's Cup? His team has a rather small budget, says Stephan Kandler, but has other advantages and qualities. Franck Cammas, for example, describes Kandler as a "secret weapon". The head of performance in the Orient Express Racing team is a jack-of-all-trades, an outstanding sailor himself, who has already broken countless records, winning the demanding Le Figaro at the age of 24 on his first attempt and the Transat Jacques Vabre twice. In 2010, he won the Route du Rhum solo and then the Ocean Race.

The best crew is the one that can best combine the trim of the boat and its development." Franck Cammas

Team Gitana's Ultim "Maxi Edmond de Rothschild" was co-developed by Franck Cammas alongside Charles Caudrelier. In 2017, Franck Cammas skippered the chronically cash-strapped Groupama Team France in the America's Cup, which nevertheless managed to shine and impress as David against the Goliaths. Back then, Franck Cammas worked closely with Head of Design Martin Fischer, who later moved to the Italian team Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli and is currently designing for Sir Ben Ainslie's team Ineos Britannia Design in the 37th America's Cup.

In the Orient Express Racing Team, Franck Cammas pulls almost all the strings. The man, who played a lot of piano and violin in his youth, is the link between the design team led by Benjamin Muyl and the sailors led by skipper Quentin Delapierre. When asked what he does for the French team, Cammas himself says with a smile: "It's difficult to explain. I asked myself the same question at the beginning: what can I do when I'm not on the boat? In the end, the aim is to be with the sailors and help them understand how this boat works. And how we can constantly improve the boat handling, the tuning and the dynamics of the tuning. The best crew is the one that can best combine the trim of the boat and its development."

America's Cup: Six teams, various designs

How well the French will succeed with their sister ship, the New Zealand "Taihoro", remains to be seen on the water. Although there are still many interpretations of the different designs of the six Cup teams, there are only a few insights into the true performance of the boats in the hands of their crews, who will continue to develop them up to the Cup races and during the regatta.

The "Orient Express" is the result of 46,000 hours of boatbuilding over nine months at Multiplast in Vannes. The renowned boatbuilding company is another ace up the French team's sleeve: no other shipyard in the world has built more winning boats in the past than here. A self-developed simulator built by VPP has helped and continues to help the French train for the America's Cup. Sailing with the smaller monohull foils, the AC40 and the Leq 12, as well as competing in the SailGP.

We didn't necessarily expect this kind of high-risk design, but it exists." Franck Cammas

Franck Cammas says he thinks the boats in the 37th America's Cup are quite different. "We didn't necessarily expect this kind of risky design, but it does exist," he said in an interview with YACHT on the christening day in Barcelona. Cammas considers the British design to be "aggressive on the one hand" and the US design from Team American Magic to be "aggressive on the other". They are "almost opposites".

If you look at Ineos, says Cammas, they are "very narrow and very tall", whereas the Americans are "low and wide". The Americans have also tried to bring the crew weight to the front. "That's certainly a good thing," says Cammas. But the disadvantage here would clearly be the drag, because the US team had also brought their crew closer to the mainsail, creating additional turbulence in this area. All this results from the low freeboard of the US yacht. The "Orient Express", on the other hand, presented itself at the christening like its Kiwi sister with a continuous bustle and without any dramatic conspicuous features.

When the dream becomes reality

The christening day in Barcelona marked a proud milestone in the history of the team led by Bruno Dubois and K-Challenge founder and winemaker Stephan Kandler, whose father and former Airbus manager was once one of the co-founders and creators of the German Daimler-Benz sailing promotion project AeroSail. Stephan Kandler said in Barcelona: "This is a remarkable moment in our journey. It is the moment when the shared dream of myself, Bruno Dubois and the entire Orient Express Racing Team has become a reality. We thank everyone involved and look forward to the start of the America's Cup and the role we will play for France in the races."

The christening clip:

To savour! Boatbuilding impressions of the French to classical music, the Goldberg Variations interpreted by Kimiko Ishizaka: