Commentary

A 'Kon Tiki' Record for illbruck

By Rich Roberts
For YachtRacing.com

Item: "Illbruck Breaks World Record."

That was the pitch from the Volvo Ocean Race press office Tuesday after the
German boat sailed a distance of 473 nautical miles in 24 hours on Leg 7 of
the Volvo Ocean Race.

Reaction: Oh, yeah?

As Assa Abloy navigator/co-skipper Mark Rudiger pointed out earlier, any
record set while riding the North Atlantic "conveyor belt" known as the
Gulf Stream should be rated suspect at best.

"The Gulf Stream has been a major player in not only helping to give us a
whopping 4-to-5-knot boost over the bottom but in gains and losses to the
other boats," Rudiger messaged via e-mail even before he learned of the
record. "Illbruck has been doing the best so far in combining optimum speed
with the Gulf Stream.

"At the rate they are going, they will likely get the best 24-hour run for
the leg and maybe even a 24-hour record for monohulls. Although I give them
credit for sailing the fastest of us out here, it would be a shallow record
given 25% of their speed has been from the Gulf Stream."

The VOR release noted that illbruck had broken the 24-hour monohull world
record set by Bernard Stamm on the Open 60 Armor Lux (467.70 nautical
miles, 19.49 knots average speed), and that illbruck's achievement "is
still provisional and has to be ratified by the World Sailing Speed Record
Council at the International Sailing Federation."

Steve Fossett's random record assaults in ideal weather windows are one
thing, but if the WSSRC/ISAF ratifies this one it will lose a big chunk of
its credibility.

How fast could Carl Lewis have run on one of those "moving sidewalks" at
the airport?

As Rudiger says, "The SEB [Volvo race] record still has more meat to it
since they only had maybe a knot and a half ocean current. So I hope if
there is any talk about records in the fleet out here, the official record
keepers [will] bear that in mind."

Meanwhile, Bruce Farr & Co. were lightning-quick on the draw to fire faxes
and e-mails off to every corner of the sailing world. One can almost hear
Walter Winchell's machine-gun delivery from the past (if you're too young
to remember Walter Winchell, just humor me):

"Good evening, Mr. And Mrs. America and all the ships at sea! Dateline
Annapolis, Maryland --- the Farr Yacht Design team is pleased to announce
that their Volvo 60 design, illbruck, has broken the 24-hour monohull world
record!"

The Farr bulletin made no mention of the Gulf Stream, but it did go on to
say, "Farr Yacht Design designed six of the eight boats competing in the
race."

Let's see, that would also include Amer Sports Too, the women's boat that
has been the last finisher on every leg and is already hopelessly behind on
this one, as well as Sweden's SEB and Bermuda's Tyco, whose rudders fell
off on earlier legs.

I don't recall getting e-mails from Farr Yacht Design about those
incidents.

As this was written, I hadn't seen anything from illbruck skipper John
Kostecki about the "record," but Kostecki, like his San Francisco homeys
Rudiger and Paul Cayard, is a class guy. I would be surprised and
disappointed if he, too, did not minimize the significance of it.

Roger Maris once had an asterisk attached to his 61 home runs because he
collected them in more games than major league baseball teams played in
Babe Ruth's era. Illbruck's edge was the Kon Tiki factor: go with the flow.

If illbruck's "record" is ratified, an asterisk wouldn't be adequate. It
would also need a laugh track.