billionaire Larry Ellison, the 48-year-old is
looking to add back-to-back America’s Cup
wins to his already impressive sailing resume.
With the Cup just around the corner, Kostecki
divides his time between his home in Nevada
and a Sleepy Hollow vacation home he shares
with his wife and children.
When you are going upwind
in 20 knots of breeze at 20
knots of boat speed, it can be
hard to even communicate to
your teammates under sail.
Describe what it feels like to sail on an AC72
wing-sailed catamaran. They are incredibly
powerful boats that accelerate so fast. It’s a
pretty cool experience. It may seem strange,
but because the apparent wind speed is
huge, you can really feel the wind hitting
your face. When you are going upwind in 20
knots of breeze at 20 knots of boat speed, it
can be hard to even communicate to your
teammates under sail.
You are about to sail your sixth America’s
Cup. Compare the classic International
America’s Cup Class (IACC) boats to the next
generation of AC boats, the wing-sailed catamarans. The biggest difference is in the speed
and acceleration. The Version 5 IACC boats
could go upwind at 10 knots, while these cats
can go about 20 knots upwind. With tacking,
our bottom speeds are sometimes around
10 knots, which is just mind-boggling to me.
Everything happens a lot quicker now.
How does this change your role as tactician? There are a lot of things that have
changed, but as a tactician, I still have to
figure out the fastest track around the
course. That’s what I’m always doing, looking out and forward to find those open
lanes. So the biggest change has been how
the speed of the boat and the cost of the
maneuvers come into the decision-making
