Japanese expected to announce Challenge late next week

by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com on 24 Apr 2015 Extremely well connected international sailing correspondent, Stuart Alexander, has reported some of the detail of the Japanese America's Cup Challenge which he expects to be announced late next week.

Writing in the Independent (UK) Alexander says the Challenge will have a Japanese skipper.

The long-heralded announcement is expected finally to be made by the end of next week and will see not only a Japanese skipper but the appearance of former Team New Zealand skipper Dean Barker in the lineup.

The team will be sponsored by Softbank for the Kansai Yacht Club and is expected, like the French team, to be offered some support by the cup holder and defender Oracle, which represents the Golden Gate Yacht Club.

It is expected that Oracle boss Larry Ellison and his sailing team boss Sir Russell Coutts will attend the signing ceremony along with Masoyashi Son.

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The head of the Japanese Challenge Masoyashi Son (57), a Korean who attended University in California, is the head of Softbank, and is ranked as the richest man in Japan, and 45th most powerful man in the world by Forbes magazine in 2013.

The Japanese are expected to use the same design package from Oracle Team USA, used by Team France, which gives them foil design as well as the one design platform (hull, wingsail and crossbeams).

Other members of Oracle Team USA who sailed with the team in the 2013 America's Cup preliminaries are expected to be named as part of the Japanese team.