Oakland’s Austin Sperry and San Anselmo’s John Kostecki Win Star Worlds in San Diego
It was a Star Class all-star and certainly a family affair in San Diego, CA, as Austin Sperry and San Anselmo’s John Kostecki (JK) knocked off the Cayard clan by the narrowest of margins to win the event. Danny Cayard finished second overall with Will Stout, while his father Paul Cayard finished fourth in a very competitive Star World Championship.
With a long and storied Star history, the San Diego Yacht Club and the host city pulled out all the stops in an event where it ended up all on the line until the very last leg in the last race. Sperry and Kostecki rounded first at the second top mark, but then saw the Argentine brothers Leandro and Lucas Altolaguirre overtaking them to capture the win, but not the championship.
“We won this with a lot of thirds; it is still hard to process, I have to thank JK and the team for making me achieve this life dream. It’s been 30 years in the making; it just feels so special. This is for all the guys I sailed with growing up and [who] helped me become the sailor and the man I am,” Sperry said.
“We sailed a great race today; we needed to. We had a great start, went fast, we had some luck with the wind shifts, and it all just came together, which is what you need to win a World Championship,” Kostecki said.
JK has been part of two winning America’s Cup teams. He won a silver medal in the 1988 Summer Olympics in the Soling class, as well as winning the Volvo Ocean Race in 2001-02 on Illbruck Racing. He has now won his 17th world championship title.
“It’s tough every day here,” Sperry added.
It was consistency that kept Kostecki and Sperry in the leaderboard mix, as Kostecki noted after a challenging race on Day 3.
“Another tricky day today; every day has been not typical San Diego: lot of changes going on during the day. We had a really good last beat and we were able to pass a bunch of boats,” Kostecki said. “We are in the middle of the championship, and we are right there, ready to give it all in the last three races. It’s hard; there are a lot of great teams out there!”
Race PRO and Star Class Regatta Director Tom Duggan commented, “It has been a challenge all week between the different wind directions, the current and the eagerness of the fleet at the starts. We had to stay south of Point Loma to have steadier breeze and not too far out to avoid the strong coastal current, but we are happy of the outcome.”
After taking second place, Danny Cayard, the family’s third-generation Star sailor said, “It was a long week of challenging conditions and it came down to the last race between six boats. It was a great way to end this championship really, open until the last leg.”
“We had a tough finish to the championship and this race. We started well, stayed in the shifts in the first upwind and then had an excellent downwind, conquering the first position. In the second upwind we lost two boats, and in the last leg, we were fast and won the race, but not the championship,” Lucas Altolaguirre declared. “We had a fantastic week here. We are very, very happy; everything was just perfect.”
Though not winning the championship, Paul Cayard, Star Class president and two-time Star World Champion, was proud of his son Danny. “It is disappointing to win three races and not the World Championship. In race two and race five I made some mistakes, just big mistakes … and finishing more than 10th, you kind of need to stay in the top 10. If you’re not having a great race, but still sail well and are able to get back to seventh it is OK. [I] just had too many points and the other guys sailed very consistently, and I’m super-happy for my son Danny, who finished second.”
San Diego has now hosted the Star Worlds nine times and is home to a cradle of GOATs in its ranks, like none other than Lowell North, Malin Burnham and the legendary Dennis Conner, who have mixed it up and knocked them off Point Loma over the decades.
“Standing with the 100-year-old World Championship Trophy makes you realize once again the great history of the Star Class and the big legacy we have to honor as Star sailors, and for me, especially as class president,” Cayard said. “This trophy was won 15 times by members of the San Diego Bay fleet, The center of the SDYC burgee has a red star as well, and that’s the emblem of the Star Class, which highlights the tight link between us!”
Sixty-four teams with 128 sailors from 14 countries came to San Diego, which hosted the Star World Championships in 1938, 1940, 1958, 1961, 1969, 1973, 1994 and 2013. The Star Class was founded at Port Washington, Long Island, in 1911, when initially 22 Stars were built. The Star was introduced in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles and remained as a class in the Games until London in 2012. It has over a 160 local fleets in 27 countries. Approximately, 8,000 Stars, give or take, have been built to date.
Wouldn’t it be miraculous if the Olympics would bring the Stars and the stars back to Los Angeles in 2028?!