Kostecki Hopes to Lead German Team

John Kostecki hopes to back in the
Cup arena in 2006.

The top level of the America’s Cup Louis Vuitton Media Centre is decorated with pieces of sail cloth bearing the countries and sail numbers of current America’s Cup Class sloops.
Nestled in between OneWorld’s USA-67 and le Défi’s FRA-69 is GER-68.

The German yacht and its crew, however, are nowhere to be seen in Auckland.

The first-ever German challenge, headed by John Kostecki, Michael Illbruck and Michael Richelsen, failed earlier this year when corporate funding wasn’t forthcoming.

“Yeah, it’s disappointing,” says Kostecki. “We were really focused on the Volvo, which was the primary goal. We never really had the right people looking for outside money, so it just never came together.”

Illbruck’s sponsorship drive suffered in part from the challenge it fielded for the Volvo Ocean Race. Kostecki, of Fairfax, Calif., was in Auckland recently to launch the book The Fight Goes On, recounting illbruck’s dominant triumph in the globe-girdling race that concluded six months ago.

Illbruck’s Cup challenge came about in the summer of 2000 during preparations for the Volvo campaign. Many of the talented crewmembers were being courted by the mega-syndicates such as Alinghi, Oracle BMW Racing, Prada and OneWorld.

Rather than disbanding after the Volvo, they looked for a way to keep continuity in the team. They had planned on challenging for the Cup in 2006, so decided to get their feet wet with a challenge this year.

Although disappointed that the challenge fell apart, Kostecki also feels a sense of relief.

“At the end of day, I didn’t realize how much the Volvo race was going to take out of me and the other sailors,” Kostecki says. “It would’ve been big a month after finishing the Volvo to ask the crew to come and jump into one of these boats and be as tuned up as even some of the tail-enders.”

The vision for Germany’s first Cup syndicate remains. Kostecki, Illbruck, son of Willi Illbruck, who launched the first Pinta racing yacht in the 1967, technical director Richelsen and sail designer/trimmer Ross Halcrow are the principals in the recently formed Pinta Racing.

The German-based company is a professional sailing team looking for sponsorship for the next Cup. In the meantime, it intends to compete in various grand-prix regattas around the world.

After the illbruck Cup campaign fell apart, Kostecki had spoken with the OneWorld Challenge from Seattle, Wash. He might have joined them, but he was listed as a sailor and designer on illbruck’s crew list for the Louis Vuitton Cup series.

Due to Kostecki’s listing as a designer, in particular, and the restrictions imposed by the America’s Cup Protocol on designers, Kostecki was prohibited from working in any capacity for another team.

The 38-year-old Kostecki, a two-time Cup tactician with AmericaOne (2000) and PACT 95 (1995), has followed the current challenger series with keen interest.

Kostecki was tactician for AmericaOne,
which lost to Prada in 2000.

The Olympic silver medallist (Soling, Seoul 1988) has taken note of the design and gear developments. He thinks the square-top mainsails being sported are an example of the benefits to monohull sailing that the event can produce.

“That’s the neat thing about this event, it’s very developmental. I think that’s an important thing we need to keep in the Cup,” Kostecki says.

He’s troubled by other aspects of the event. The former Rolex Yachtsman of the Year (1988) thinks interest in the event has been subdued by the constraining wind limits that have prevented racing from being started in anything over 19 knots.

“This isn’t the best thing for the sport, but I fully understand the challengers (motive) and truly believe it is the best way of choosing a challenger to race against Team New Zealand,” Kostecki says.

Kostecki also has been disappointed by all the legal issues dominating the headlines. From cheating accusations against OneWorld Challenge to public squabbling between challenger and defender, the America’s Cup, as an event, has taken another broadside swipe by pundits who say it’s just a rich man’s game.

“This time around, with the different protests and allegations, it’s not making our sport look good,” Kostecki says. “For a person that’s very involved with the sport, I’m embarrassed. I feel the America’s Cup has so much potential to be such a great event and (the contentiousness) kind of spoils it a bit.”

The most controversial issue regards OneWorld Challenge, which came under intense scrutiny one month ago when two challengers, Team Dennis Conner and Prada, reopened “Reeves-gate”, the story of design secrets for sale.

The two teams’ actions forced the America’s Cup Arbitration Panel to make a hasty trip to Auckland for two days of hearings. The panel had previously penalised OneWorld one point for six violations of the America’s Cup Protocol in a decision handed down last August.

The panel found OneWorld in contravention of the protocol again, but that decision, like the earlier one, came from OneWorld’s admission that it possessed information that it shouldn’t have.

Despite the penalties, Kostecki feels OneWorld is the most honest team on syndicate row.

“Every syndicate has done whatever they have done. I think it’s pretty common,” Kostecki says. “They just kind of got caught in a bad position. They ended up admitting something maybe they shouldn’t have. That’s where they got penalised.

“I see them as being one of the cleanest campaigns on the block. Unfortunately they’re getting penalised for it,” Kostecki says.