He wants to win the America's Cup 2006, the Leverkusen entrepreneur announced today in Kiel. "Germany has a claim to it," he said. "The 'Alinghies' and 'Kiwis' can dress warmly."
The publicity boost following the victory in the Volvo Ocean Race should be used to bring the America's Cup to Kiel. The framework for the new campaign is already in place. The idea is to set up a racing team like in Formula 1. The name: Pinta Challenge. To this end, the previous illbruck Challenge GmbH, which is a 100 per cent subsidiary of illbruck GmbH, will be separated from the group of companies and renamed.
This also means that illbruck money will no longer flow into the Cup campaign. This will come from sponsors. The budget for four years is 90 million euros, "you can't build a winning syndicate on that," says Illbruck. And sponsors would only jump on board if they saw a realistic chance of winning.
The 95 per cent completed AC boat in Bremen, which was planned for the current Cup (Illbruck cancelled the preparations due to a lack of funds), should, if the financing works out this time, already be swimming on the fjord for training next year. Another training boat is to be purchased from the current Cup stock and two new boats are to be built before the 2006 Cup.
In addition to Michael Illbruck, the core team includes skipper John Kostecki, sail trimmer and coordinator Ross Halcrow and designer Michael Richelsen.
According to Illbruck, the financing must be in place "by mid-2003. Then we'll know exactly when and where the next Cup will be held and we'll have to hit the ground running by then at the latest."
He cannot imagine participating in the Volvo Ocean Race again at the moment: "We have achieved everything we wanted, we couldn't do any better." However, he shies away from the logical consequence of selling the race boat to the highest bidder: "There are too many emotions attached to it, we still love sailing it with the people on the fjord."
DSV President Dierk Thomsen also wants to capitalise on illbruck's success. It is "a great opportunity to promote sailing at a high level in Germany". The "message" of the Volvo Ocean Race has "reached even the smallest clubs". The favour of the hour must be used, but he does not yet have a recipe for this.
Lars Bolle
Chief Editor Digital
