Kostecki Makes a Winner Out of Illbruck

Illbruck, a German boat with an American skipper, won the eighth running of the Volvo Ocean Race on Sunday by finishing second behind the surprising Norwegian winner on the last of nine legs from Gothenburg, Sweden, to this lively port on Germany’s Baltic coast.

And now that John Kostecki, Olympic silver medallist and winner of 10 world sailing championships, has reached a new peak in his career, what’s next?

“Uh, couch potato,” he replied.

It has been a long 8 1/2 months since Kostecki, 37, and crew set out in their 64-foot sloop from Southampton in southern England in the sport’s premier offshore event.

Forgive him if he kicks back a while to, oh, go sailing. He needs time to reflect on a finely tuned effort that made him the second consecutive American skipper to lead such a victory, following Paul Cayard’s success with Sweden’s EF Language in 1997-98.

“The second San Franciscan!” Kostecki corrected a reporter. But he also has become one of Germany’s most popular sports figures. The people aboard the hundreds of spectator boats and another estimated 120,000 lining the shore won’t give him up easily.

Like Cayard, Kostecki was the only American in a multinational effort, in Kostecki’s case a German boat that had only one German--bowman Tony Kolb--but half a crew of New Zealanders and a Spanish navigator, Juan Vila. The program, sponsored by the German company that produces materials for the construction industry, was built on a year and a half of training, testing and sail development that launched illbruck to an early commanding lead that proved insurmountable to some capable rivals--most notably, Assa Abloy.

Over the 32,700 nautical miles that included two romps through the turbulent Southern Ocean, two boats--SEB, of Sweden, and Amer Sports Too--lost their masts, while SEB and Bermuda’s Tyco broke their rudders. Even illbruck almost sank in rough seas when a bow hatch cover broke the first night out of Cape Town in November.

Illbruck recovered to win that leg, as well as three others, and was the only boat of the eight with no finish worse than fourth.

The all-woman crew of Amer Sports Too finally gained some glory Sunday by finishing fourth on the last leg--the first time they had finished ahead of anyone.

In the end, Assa Abloy, which won three legs, was the only boat illbruck had to worry about. The boat backed by the Swedish lock company had the most American crew with three Yanks: navigator and co-skipper Mark Rudiger, also of San Francisco; tactician-helmsman Chris Larson of Annapolis, Md., and all-round veteran Mike Howard of Malibu. Assa Abloy outsailed illbruck on the race’s shorter legs before it fell short on the shortest of all, finishing third and nearly two hours behind illbruck.

The 220 nautical miles from Gothenburg to Kiel was ripe for surprises, with its light and shifty winds and swirling tidal currents, but it was home waters to Norway’s djuice.

The pink-and-black boat hadn’t beaten anyone but the women on six of the eight earlier legs but, heeding forecasts for light wind, removed three of its 12 crew members and all excess sails and equipment to lighten up.

It seemed to pay off. Skipper Knut Frostad said, “The night before I had some dreams about winning. We were just so fast it was unbelievable. For the first time in the race we were the fastest boat!”

It was also satisfying for the women to beat Amer Sports One, their partner in the Nautor program, by about 250 meters.

Skipper Lisa McDonald said, “It was a nice way to finish for the team because we always knew we had it in us.”