Downtown Volvo

Who will snap up Cayard first...

When John Kostecki's illbruck Challenge crossed the finish line in first place and in the shadow of the Sydney Opera house they scored a maximum eight points. This brought their total up to an impressive 16 points, the highest possible, after the two legs that have now been sailed.

Both legs saw numerous leaders, but solid sailing from the illbruck boys meant that within spitting distance of the finish they well-practiced team twice passed into the lead. For leg one it was Grant Dalton on board Amer Sports One who conceeded the lead, this time it was Gunnar Krantz' SEB - the question is, who will it be next time? Is illbruck invincible?

Though illbruck's competitors were happy to admit that Kostecki has already set a very high standard - every sailor stepping on to the arrivals pontoon after their hard sail through the Southern Ocean held the belief that the German team, who started scouting for crew during the previous Whitbread race, can be beaten.

With six of the eight boats from the Farr drawing boards it is unlikely that illbruck have a particularly faster boat than anyone else. Without a doubt their crew work is exquiset, with three years of building up to the event an unquestionable advantage. But all of the teams have top class professional sailors on board, and so team work cannot be the only reason - can it? One less broach or one less blown out sail may not seem much, but on paper it works out to be an advantage of approximately 5-15 miles. SEB found out the hard way when a massive wipe out resulted in ten miles of lost ground and a drop form first to second. illbruck's won leg two by just over ten miles.

Can the teams learn to sail these boats as well as the illbruck team before the current race leaders get too far ahead... only time will tell.

Protests on page two...