illbruck invincible?

James Boyd looks back on an action packed leg in the Volvo Ocean Race

For those who have followed previous Whitbreads and watched the campaigns of Steinlager II, New Zealand Endeavour and EF Language, there is a feeling of deja-vu descending upon the Volvo Ocean Race with illbruck's third win out of four legs. John Kostecki's immaculately prepared team now holds a seven point advantage over Grant Dalton's Amer Sports One in second, a divide not helped by Dalts' unfortunate fifth place arrival into Rio.

If Paul Cayard raised the game in the race four years ago with his spectacular performance on EF Language, Kostecki (pictured right) has gone one stage further for this race. Illbruck are unique in being the only team to have been working on their campaign for this race since the end of the last one, in a similar fashion to the way most America's Cup teams now operate. Over this time it seems Kostecki has developed the perfect cocktail of skills necessary to win a race such as this. In the Southern Ocean they were tactically smart and most importantly sailed hard without breaking their boat.

Text book leg for illbruck

The leg from Auckland started on 27 January, but it was not until a week later when the boats were into the strong westerlies in the Southern Ocean, that illbruck cruised into the lead, in text book fashion.

At the time illbruck was in the middle of the course, with previous leader News Corp the furthest south and Amer Sports One to the north (Dalts had pulled a flier, effectively cutting the corner on the route south to the westerlies). On illbruck it became apparent that News Corp was not going to hold onto her lead while Dalts and Kostecki's former America's Cup skipper Paul Cayard were making hay to the north. Kostecki swung left to cover and for the next 16 days the rest of the fleet were history.

That night Kostecki put his foot down and 24 hours later (by 3 February) was 32 miles ahead of Dalts. They then clung on to 57deg 30S and made further gains while the other boats dived further south, extending their lead to 50 miles, before heading south again, reconverging with those behind to bank their gain. A few day out from Cape Horn the fleet had compressed once more, although Tyco and Amer Sports One, the two main contenders, never got closer than 20 miles to her.

Illbruck rounded Cape Horn on 10 February, significantly, with the tide, while those chasing missed it. Just prior to the Horn they had extended their lead again to 50 miles, but after rounding it their lead further extended at one point reaching 72 miles.

On the way north to Rio, Kostecki played the weather perfectly and was also again quite lucky with his timing - getting on the right side of a front to the north of the Falklands he was at one point able to extend his lead to over 100 miles. With that kind of margin the very real threats from the extreme routes of djuice and Amer Sports One to the east and News Corp to the west could be covered.

The passage north to Rio was faster than anticipated due to a high pressure system which had formed over Uruguay that provided the boats with pleasant broad reaching conditions. But once the boats sailed out of the grasp of the high pressure and were lining up for their approach to Rio, they saw less and less wind.

At the front of the fleet illbruck was the first to experience the lull, allowing the chasing pack to get within 40 miles of her by last Friday (15 Feb). In these conditions anything could happen and it was a tense time for Kostecki and his crew. On Sunday Amer Sports One had closed to within 12 miles of the leader and seemed to be posing a serious threat.

Uncharacteristically it was breaking from the pack that finally secured victory for illbruck. By lining up for an easterly approach to Rio as those astern of her went west she extended her to lead to 38 miles, enabling her to reach Rio first, 12 hours ahead of her nearest rival, to conclude what was one of the tensest and closest legs of an ocean race we can remember.


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