The winner returns

We speak to John Kostecki about his return to the Volvo Ocean Race

Having the skipper of last time round's winning boat in your team is always worth a few clicks of boat speed and thus it comes as little surprise that since departing BMW Oracle Racing's afterguard in July several Volvo Ocean Race teams have been seriously courting former illbruck Challenge skipper John Kostecki.

"I am still with BMW Oracle, it’s just that I am not as hands on as I was before," qualifies Kostecki. "I have a consultancy role, so now my schedule has freed up and has allowed me to do some non-America’s Cup sailing. This opportunity came up and I jumped at it."

Several factors were at stake in choosing the right team to go with this time and aside from minor issues such as money, Kostecki says that in his opinion Ericsson are the team with the best prospects in November's round the world race. This is quite an endorsement. "I didn’t want to be involved with any team. I want to win the race again and I thought they had the best chance - a great skipper, excellent crew, a proven management, administration and support team, that is very experienced and that has successfully won the race before and if they haven’t won the race they were always in the top. So I feel the total package is the right one for me." The credentials of Atlant, Johan Salen and Richard Brisius' Stockholm-based company that brought us Assa Abloy and EF indeed could hardly be higher.

As his arrangement stands at the moment Kostecki is coming on board as tactician for the in-port racing. Under the new make-up of the Volvo Ocean Race this now represents 25% (ie a significant part) of the available points for the race. "We reckonise it being very important to do well in that, so I think we’ll be spending more time focusing on that."

Kostecki says that he will be available to sail on the offshore legs if the need is there and assuming he is available. "The plan is to have the current crew race around the world, but I could be on stand-by for that. And I’ll have an advisory sort of role. I am not as hands on as the others on the sailing team, so I’ll be able to have a different perspective on the sailing, the performance and how things are going and hopefully steer the team to victory."

How crew-turn over between legs - due to the very real prospect of crew injury/exhaust from sailing these larger more powerful boats short-handed - is handled seems to vary from team to team. Most are attempting to sail with the same crew until such time as they are forced to spin people in and out.

The new blisteringly fast Volvo Open 70s are of course another attraction back to the round the world race for Kostecki. "I think they are pretty cool boats. I am really looking forward to racing on them. I haven’t even seen one yet, so when I do it will be quite an experience for me. I think that it is great that there is a new rule. These new boats will be a lot faster and trickier to sail and that’s going to be a major challenge racing one of these around the world. I think it is on the leading edge of technology whereas the America’s Cup isn’t at the moment."

Kostecki acknowledges that the way the new VO70s will be sailed will be different from how they handled the VO60s four years ago. "It had to be pretty extreme before you backed off," he says of the old boats. "With these, once the breeze comes up they really become powered up and you don’t really have too many options of what to do. I think those will be some of the trickier calls - knowing when to back off in the Southern Ocean and when not to, as if you don’t back off and you are able to survive the conditions, you will be advanced on the rest of the fleet. That will be a pretty interesting turning point in the race and I think that will tell who is going to win and who isn’t."

With the new first generation VO70s, it will be vitally important that the boat stays in one piece advises Kostecki - 'to finish first, first you must finish' will never have been truer. "It is a new class, but I think the overall winning concept hasn’t really changed: You always have to have a boat that doesn’t break to win sail boat races, no matter what event you’re in, so that will be key. One of the trickiest things with these from what I understand is that they are quite a handful in a breeze, so I think getting through the Southern Ocean without having any major catastrophies and knowing your limits - that will be a deciding factor."

Obviously with the return of Paul Cayard, two impressively experienced teams under the leadership of Mike Sanderson and Bouwe Bekking plus the Brazilian entry of uber-Olympian and former America's Cupper Torben Grael, the entry list for the Volvo Ocean Race is a small but strong one - stronger possibly than it was four years ago. "There are a lot of other top offshore sailors and teams out there and some different designs that look interesting and it is pretty hard to tell. I think the teams with the most time with their boats should do well with their boats as in past races."

One theory about this Volvo Ocean Race has been that if some of the late launchers aren't fully cranked up by the time the start gun goes in November, then they will come on line as the race progresses. With the majority of available points being picked up in the latter stage of the race once the boats have returned to the northern hemisphere, the result in the round the world race will be a close run thing. Kostecki doesn't feel this to be the case. "Playing catch up - it is hard doing that," he says. "In the last race we were leaders all the way through and I know there were teams trying to catch up and copy some of our sails and some of our techniques, but you can only do a certain amount. And this is a tough race. I really see the teams that are out on the water earlier having an advantage going into this race - and at the end of this race."

While the winter's race around will be every bit as competitive as it was four years ago, Kostecki predicts that it won't be as close due to the signficant performance variation between the boats. "I think these boats are incredibly different and you are going to see a lot of different sail combinations and ways of sailing the boat and different ideas and I guess that will be a slight negative thing about this race compared to the others in that the boats won’t be quite as close.

When we spoke to Kostecki at the end of last week he was due to step on board a plane to Vigo to have his first visit to meet and get to know the Ericsson team as well as his first ever ride on a canting keel yacht.

He expects to spend two weeks with the team between now and the start. Aside from the Volvo Kostecki won't be drawn into comparing his situation with that of Cayard four years ago at BMW Oracle Racing. "I have been away now for a couple of months and I am really happy with this solution - spending time at home, with other projects like the Volvo and the Transpac 52s."

The TP52 Breitling MedCup circuit is likely to become a major feature in Kostecki's life. So far this year he has sailed as Dee Smith's stand-in on board Caixa Galicia and will return to do this again in the class' last regatta of the season in Sardinia. But next year he expects to be driving his own boat... watch this space.

Read part one and part two of our interview on the subject of 'How to win the Volvo Ocean' with John Kostecki from the end of the last race