How to win the Volvo Ocean Race pt2

James Boyd completes his review of 'how illbruck did it'

The leg across the Atlantic to La Rochelle was another text book illbruck leg and she led more or less from the moment the fleet left the Chesapeake, a feat attributed not just to their reaching speed, but to the prowess of navigator Juan Vila in playing the Gulf Stream.

In light of their short course problem, in La Rochelle it was decided to bring on board former Star World Champion Ed Adams to add to the tactical muscle on board for leg 8. However they still came fourth, albeit in a classic finish which saw the top five boats finish within seven minutes of each other coming into Gothenburg. Finally there was a second on the 24 hour sprint leg to the race's conclusion in Kiel.

Illbruck finished with 61 points to second placed ASSA ABLOY's 55. It was job done for John Kostecki and his crew of Juan Vila, Stu Bannatyne, Mark Christensen, Ross Halcrow, Dirk de Ridder, Ray Davies, Richard Clarke, Jamie Gale, Stu Bettany, Tony Kolb and Ian Moore.

What is perhaps surprising about the illbruck campaign is that for all their preparation - two years more than most of the other campaigns - they didn't win by more. They were noticably quicker reaching, one of the main contributing factors that won them the two Southern Ocean legs and leg seven across the Atlantic, but otherwise they were generally not that that much quicker than the rest of the fleet, particularly in the latter half of the race.

Patrick Shaughnessy, Senior Designer at the Farr office says it was hard to make big gains with this the third generation of Volvo Ocean 60. "It was nominal as far as static design went. A lot got wiped out by the additional safety gear the boats had to carry. However the dynamic behaviour from the stability and the stiffness of the mast, allowed the boats to go faster". Although short of going for a one design there is little Volvo can do to prevent teams spending all the money they care in research, if Volvo were to stick with the Volvo 60 any team wanting to make a similar leap as illbruck will find it costing the earth. "To get the next gains, they would have to spend loads more money," warns Steve Morris.

Final results (including, for interests sake only, elapsed times - only where all legs were completed).

Boat	Points	Total Elapsed Time
illbruck	61	123d 5h 11m 15s
ASSA	55	127d 11h 14m 46s
Amer One	44	124d 10h 44m 35s
Tyco	42
News Corp	41
djuice	33	132d 10h 48m 15s
SEB	32
Amer Too	16

For more photos see page 4