Desafío Español signed yesterday evening another sponsorship agreement, reaching another milestone in their successful commercial promotion.

This time, the group that will sponsor the home team of the 32nd America's Cup is Viajes Marsans, the oldest and largest Spanish tour operator, present throughout Spain, Europe and Latin America. As part of the agreement, the logo of the tourist group will appear on the boat's mainsail.

According to Gonzalo Pascual, president of Viajes Marsans, the financial part of the sponsorship agreement consists of 3 million euros of direct cash contribution to the team's budget in addition to other indirect contributions, such as advertizing, marketing as well as promotion (therefore, the figure could be as high as four or five million euros).

This makes it the sixth important sponsor for the Spanish team, with another one to be announced shortly.

Agustín Zulueta, technical director of Desafío Español 2007, gave some interesting news concerning the team's new boats.

First of all, ESP-88, the new boat under construction, will be launched shortly, without getting into details but he emphasized it was the team's intention to race with it in Louis Vuitton Act 12 two months from now.

Secondly, having covered almost 95% of their budget of 60 million euros, the team can now seriously think about the second new boat whose design and construction should begin in July or August.