Desafío Español 2007 assesses its performance in Louis Vuitton Acts 10 and 11

Desafío Español 2007, the Spanish America's Cup challenger, held a press conference this morning in Valencia where Luís Doreste, sports director, and Agustín Zulueta, team manager, gave an assessment of their team's performance in the recent races as well as their plans for the future.

Overall goal
Both men repeated that the main goal Desafío Español has is to enter next year's Louis Vuitton Cup placed fourth overall in the Challenger Rankings after having beaten all teams below them in the table. They have achieved the fourth position but the issue of beating Victory Challenge still needs to be worked on.

Louis Vuitton Act 10
Their goal for Louis Vuitton Act 10 was to be placed fifth overall with 7 wins. They achieved their first goal but failed in the second one as they were beaten by theoretically inferior teams, such as Victory Challenge or Team Shosholoza. They scored one important win against Luna Rossa, although, they admitted, it could be partially attributed to the failed spinnaker hoist by the Italians.

One lesson they drew from Act 10, was that racing has become much tighter and some of the teams that used to be considered very week have made remarkable progress in the last 12 months, especially Shosholoza, a team they both praised. No team and no race should ever be taken lightly from now on and just a small error can lead to a defeat.

Louis Vuitton Act 11
Both Doreste and Zulueta admitted that the Spanish team performed poorly in Louis Vuitton Act 11. Some of the errors were due to the crew, other were psychological, such as their focus on Victory Challenge. The Swedish team performed exceptionally well in the first race by winning it with a very comfortable lead. This lead the Spanish to include in their strategy for the other four races, the need to follow closely the Swedes. Unfortunately, after their first victory, the Swedish team raced poorly, resulting in an equally poor performance of Desafío Español. This is no excuse, but none of the Spanish team's crew had participated in fleet races after last year's Louis Vuitton Act in Trapani. On the contrary, Vasco Vascotto, skipper of Mascalzone Latino - Capitalia Team, was the winner of the 2005 Breitling MedCup, one of the world's most important fleet racing circuit.

Focus on match race
Since more than 18 months, the Spanish team has been intensively working and training on developing their match racing skills. After all, the Louis Vuitton Cup and the America's Cup are about match racing and this is where they want to focus on. Their longer term goal is to succeed in the Louis Vuitton Cup and the only chance to achieve it is by excelling in that area.

Fleet racing is spectacular, draws many spectators and adds to the excitement with its roller coaster results, but one should not exaggerate its importance in the America's Cup, claimed both men. In their view, the ninth place in fleet racing should be put into perspective. Take for example Mascalzone Latino - Capitalia Team, their closest rival now in the Challenger Rankings, trailing them 10 points. If Desafío Español finishes two places ahead of them in Act 12 their lead will increase by 4 points. In the worst case scenario, if Mascalzone Latino - Capitalia Team finishes next year's Act 13 six places ahead of the Spanish, the Italians will have closed the gap by 18 points. The end result will be the Italians getting ahead by four points in the ranks and possibly taking 3 bonus points and the Spanish 2.

Still, the Italians will have never beaten the Spanish in match racing and will have just one bonus point more, or half a win in the Louis Vuitton Cup where each victory counts for two points. Zulueta insisted it made much more sense trying to excel in match racing than embarking on fleet racing training and tactics for one bonus point.

Additions or changes in crew
When asked about possible additions or changes to the crew, Zulueta was clear about the issue. The last time the team talked about that with journalists, it had 15 million euros less in its budget. It is obvious that given their current healthy financial situation, they are seriously considering the issue and are in discussions with 6 sailors (some of them currently taking part in the Volvo Ocean Race) that could potentially cover 3 positions. He insisted that nobody from the current crew will be fired or replaced but that the new additions will be used to "strenghthen" the team, although they admitted that the pool of available and qualified sailors, preferably with previous America's Cup experience, has considerably shrank in the last 12 months.

ESP-88
Doreste restated that the team's "strategic" decision is to race Louis Vuitton Act 12 with the new boat, ESP-88, even if it is just four weeks ahead and the boat was launched a couple of days ago. It is a risk they intend to take, just as Luna Rossa and BMW Oracle did. For that reason, after today's short break, the sailing team, starting tomorrow will embark on an intensive two-boat (ESP-65 and ESP-88) training period.