According to a report by Tim Jeffery in The Daily Telegraph today, it is thought that the South African Challenge will lodge their bid plus the €1 million "performance bond" required with the Swiss as soon as next week.

This would make the South African team the first formal challengers after Larry Ellison's Oracle BMW Racing

Salvatore Sarno said the South Africa America's Cup Challenge 2007 would have a budget of about €20 million. This is small change compared with the budget of the current holders and defenders of the cup, Swiss team Alinghi, of €100m and of an Italian challenge at €120m.

But a lot of the money spent by those teams would go towards the salaries of the extremely highly paid "Hollywood stars" of sailing that these teams acquire as part of their strategy to win.

"We will have no such stars, but we will have dedicated people who will give that extra 10% that might make the difference," Sarno said.

World-class Cape Town yachtsman Geoff Meek will skipper the South African entry. He has won many big-boat events in his career, including the Fastnet Race, Cowes Week, the Sydney Hobart Race, the SORC Race Week in Miami, Block Island Race Week off New York, Sardinia Cup, the Southern Cross Cup in Sydney and the Onion Patch regatta in Newport.

He has also won every major offshore regatta in South Africa and holds the record of 20 Table Bay Race Week championship titles.

Sailing crew signed up so far are Ian Ainslie, David Rae, Golden Mgedeza, Ashton Sampson, Marcello Burricks, Marc Lagesse and Guido Verhovert. The full crew will be selected during trials held throughout the year.

"We plan to start sailing with our training boat on April 1 with 10 local crew," said sailing manager Paul Standbridge, who did the same job with the GBR Challenge in 2003.

Mafika Mkwanazi, former CEO of Transnet, has been appointed president of the SA America's Cup Challenge. Its legal affairs would be managed by top law firm Shepstone and Wylie, known for their maritime law expertise.