Building the Tower of Babel was a doddle compared with the linguistic and cultural challenges of managing the China Team.

China’s first team to compete in the America’s Cup is managed by Le Défi, an organisation responsible for the French challenges in 1999-2000 and 2003. The funding is Chinese, the crew is multinational, but just getting everyone to understand each other has been an achievement in itself.

Take the construction of the boat. It was designed in France, but America’s Cup rules stipulate the boat must be built in the country that is mounting the challenge.As a result, McConaghy, an Australian boat builder, sent two employees to Dong Guan, an industrial town in Shenzen, to oversee construction.

Chris Hill and Wayne Crossland each worked with a team of 20 Chinese. “We spoke no Chinese, they spoke no English,” says Mr Hill, over lunch at the China Team’s hangar in Valencia. “There were perhaps only three carpenters among them and they had never built a boat before.”

On the water, there is very little time for translation or explanation and the China Team is working with a double-handicap: the inexperience of their six Chinese sailors; and the communication barrier – none of them speaks French or English.

Hubert Lemonier, the team’s translator, has created a special America’s Cup lexicon of about 250 words – in English, French and Chinese – to allow the team to communicate. “At the beginning,” he says, “they were completely lost. But some of the sailors have been with us for two years now and are in a position to help the others. During training, they pay a lot of attention and focus on timing. What helps is that the Chinese have a long tradition of respect for authority, and they are very disciplined on the boat….We are at a point where they know their technical positions, but cannot yet solve unexpected problems on their own.”

Wearn Haw Tan, a Singaporean sail trimmer and navigator, is the only crew member who has sailing experience and speaks the three languages.“There are three groups on the boat: the international guys, the young French guys and the Chinese,”he says.“I think the ice was broken after the French went to China last autumn.There was more understanding after that, but every day is still a challenge.

“I think we now have a good balance between experience and freshness, of crew members who are young and enthusiastic because this is their first Cup. It will be a good foundation for the next challenge.”

At €14m, the China Team has the smallest budget in the America’s Cup. Securing funding for future campaigns will be a challenge in itself. “A lot of work remains to be done to promote sailing as a sport, and the America’s Cup as an event, in China,” says Xavier de Lesquen, executive manager of the China Team, who also managed Le Défi’s challenges in Auckland in 1999-2000 and 2003.

The China Team was founded by a group of Chinese businessmen led by Chaoyong Wang of China Equity, one of the leading venture capital funds in China. In 2004, he and his wife Li Yifei, president of MTV China, watched the first regattas of the new edition of the America’s Cup in Marseilles, and returned to China convinced that their country, in the midst of an economic boom, had to take part in the competition. It was Mr Chaoyong who contacted (and invested in) Le Défi to get the ball rolling.

“If we want to take the China Team to the next competitive level,we will need many more Chinese sponsors,” says Mr de Lesquen.The biggest drawback is that the America’s Cup is a relatively unknown competition taking place in Europe. “We talk to many potential Chinese sponsors, and their first question is: how will the America’s Cup help us in the Chinese market? At present, they don’t see a clear benefit in sponsoring the America’s Cup.”

He believes much effort is needed to popularise sailing as a sport in China, and to capture the imagination of potential partners. “We need to convince a group of investors that we can build something strong together – that the America’s Cup is a platform for the future.

He does not see this as impossible. “Many Chinese companies are poised to become big international brands,” he says, “and will be looking for greater visibility abroad.”

Leslie Crawford is the FT’s bureau chief in Madrid