Back in the driver's seat

We catch up with the new man behind the wheel at Ericsson, 2001-2 Volvo Ocean Race winner John Kostecki

Following reports of 'winch handles at dawn' between some of her crew and a race that up until Melbourne was fraught with issues with her keel canting mechanism, so the Atlant-run Ericsson Racing Team has undergone a make over in Rio de Janiero stopover.

Most signficant has been the appointment of John Kostecki into the skippers role. Kostecki obviously led illbruck Challenge into battle winning the race four years ago in a similar fashion to Mike Sanderson's ABN AMRO One team this time. The German team last time effectively had the race in the bag from the start gun - they had had considerably more development time than their competitors, had a better sail package etc (to see part one and part two of our post-race interviews with JK last time). How will Kostecki fare now trying to pull together a team on the back foot, lying in last place of the six boats currently competing.

Fortunately Kostecki is no strange to the Ericsson team. He has been the boat's tactician for all the in-port races but has also been an advisor to the team since August last year. "For sure it was not only a tactician role," he says. "There was always the optio for me to do some of the offshore races from Rio on - that was always in the plan from the beginning, since before the race started, and for sure helping out with some of the key decisions. I have always been available to talk to whomever helping out in all areas."

Since then during the Rio stopover Kostecki was given the skipper role, previous skipper Britain's own Neal McDonald relegated to watch leader and one of the principle helmsmen. Long term observers of the race saw some irony in this - in the race four years ago Atlant had replaced Roy Heiner with McDonald as skipper of the Swedish entry Assa Abloy. And in this race who is smelling of roses, the man who set up the ABN AMRO deal, who made the phone call to Juan Kouyoumdjian rather than the more obvious choice in Annapolis? None other than Roy Heiner, of course.



"It was short notice," says Kostecki of his appointment. "I was racing Miami Race Week on the Farr 40 and was asked to come down to Rio earlier than expected to debrief from the leg and review what options we had ahead of us for the upcoming leg and how we could try to improve our performance. We had a bunch of open discussions once the guys got in and everybody agreed some changes in personnel and some other changes needed to be made so that is what we ended up doing..."

Kostecki is fully the skipper, but the arrangement seems an odd one. At present it is unclear whether this will still be the case for the transatlantic leg and beyond. "It is still up in the air," he says. "I do have other commitments at the moment and similar to what we did here in Rio, once we get into Baltimore, we are going to make some decisions about what the best team is for the upcoming legs." It is hard to see him getting off and McDonald returning to the skippers role - but anything is possible and this might explain why McDonald stayed on rather than resign .

"It worked pretty smoothly," says Kostecki of the transition. "Everyone was quite open and agreed we needed to make some changes - including Neal. This is Neal’s team, he pretty much handpicked everybody not only on the sailing side but on the shoreside. He wants to see this team succeed and he is a great team player and he is willing to do whatever it takes to help this team until we get to Gothenberg. It wasn’t a major drama as it could have been with some other people."

A couple of other weaknesses spotted within the team were there being too many bowmen and not enough world-class trimmers in the crew and also some weaknesses in the sail program. The solution has been to bring on Kostecki's illbruck Challenge and up until last year BMW Oracle Racing wingman Ross Halcrow. "Rosco is a great, experienced sailor especially in this race and he is great at making boats go fast not only with sails," says Kostecki of his colleague. "For sure we are probably below par with our sail program as we are with a lot of other areas. We feel we have untapped potential and so I think he will add a lot on this next leg."

Kostecki is being tight lipped about any specific area of the sail program that is lacking. But a criticism of it has been that there are some significant holes in the performance envelope that are entirely the result of not having the correct piece of canvas for the job. With the limited sail wardrobe this has been the case with all the boats, but seems to have affect Ericsson worst than most. "We are trying to get a more balanced sail inventory that can cover all the ranges so we don’t have any holes," says Kostecki. "It is a challenging task because of the limited sails that we’re allowed to bring and the limited sails we are allowed to build, but again we have done a lot of work on this stopover and the sail program and have focused probably as one of the top priorities of improving our speed for the future. Our sails I feel are critical to being successful in this race." As with the VO60, the most significant area of development in Volvo Open 70 sails is in the reachers.

The Ericsson sail program has not benefitted from some initial dithering over the team's sail maker, Doyles chosen from the outset but subsequently replaced by North Sails in the UK. "I think that had a little bit to do with the late timing because Ericsson came in late with the sponsorship and I don’t know the exact details but I guess Volvo was building the boat to begin with and it came down the time line where they needed to start ordering sails and so they ordered the Doyles sails and at some point in there we switched over to the North Sails." Kostecki also maintains that the team having to focus so much on their canting keel woes in the early stages of the race detracted from their developing the sail program.

Kostecki's appointment will free McDonald up to do what he is notoriously good at - helming and running the show on deck, however the appointment of Halcrow has resulted in Jason Carrington remaining shore side and this may leave a gaping hole in the knowledge base on board if anything goes wrong with the boat.

Obviously one of the key relationships on board will be between Kostecki and his navigator Steve Hayles. However the duo have raced together extensively at BMW Oracle Racing. "Steve I probably know second best and worked with him the most," says Kostecki. "I haven’t done much offshore racing with him, so I am looking forward to that."

Kostecki has obviously raced the Ericsson Volvo Open 70 inshore, carried out some training with the team offshore prior to the start and sailed three or four days last week to ensure the mods to the boats had bedded down, but otherwise no experience of racing the new boat offshore. "They are pretty awesome, powerful machines," he says of the VO70 generally. "Obviously some of the keel problems are unfortunate and also the design differencies are quite large. I would have hoped that we would have had a closer race so far to date. Besides that if we can make or keep these boats more reliable with less breakages, then we should have a good start to a new class. The key thing is the reliability and making sure you can get around the race course without breaking down." Everyone hopes, for example, that we have now seen the last keel canting issues to do with the race.

The big issue for Kostecki is are ABN AMRO One still beatable? At present the black boat holds an impressive score line totalling 52.5 of the 56 maximum points available so far from a total of 108.5 for the whole race.

"They have got a great boat and their whole package is fantastic," says Kostecki of Mike Sanderson's team. "Everyone mentions the boat and the boat is different, but they have a different mast to everyone else which seems to be well thought out and a sail program that is probably the best out there and there is a great team that is operating the boat out on the water. So their total package is a lot better and it is not just the boat itself. Personally I am surprised by how many problems the teams have had in this race. I wouldn’t have predicted all the problems we have had to date. So I am not willing to predict what is going to happen between now and the finish. I am going to stay open minded about it. If they can hold it together they will be unbeatable.

"For sure the other teams are improving, but time is against us all, because the clock is ticking and June is not too far away. I think it is always hard in these races to catch up, especially to ABN. They are so far advanced."

Will Ericsson be able to fight back from the brink? We shall watch closely.