By BERNIE WILSON

AP Sports Writer

American skipper John Kostecki held a slim lead over two rivals late Monday afternoon as the Volvo Ocean Race approached Miami, the first of two U.S. ports in the round-the-world race.

Kostecki's illbruck Challenge, the overall race leader, was some 269 miles southeast of Miami, leading ASSA ABLOY by just 12 miles at the front of the eight-boat fleet. Tyco was third, another four miles back.

The leading boats were due into Miami late Tuesday night or early Wednesday.

"It's a good feeling but actually a nervous feeling because the wind has gotten lighter on this leg, so it's going to create opportunities for the boats behind," Kostecki said by satellite phone.

The 60-foot boats, with 12-member crews, were racing through tropical heat. On the previous leg, from Auckland, New Zealand, to Rio de Janeiro, they dodged icebergs and sailed through snowstorms.

If the German-based illbruck Challenge holds on, it will have won four of the first five legs, with four more to go in the 32,700-mile race. Winning a leg is worth eight points, and illbruck held a 29-22 lead over Amer Sports One heading into Miami.

"It would mean a lot to win this leg, just to get another notch on our competitors," Kostecki said. "The future legs are going to be quite tough because they're shorter legs and it's going to be tighter racing, and really, it could be anybody's ballgame."

The 4,450-mile fifth leg, which started in Rio de Janeiro on March 9, has basically been a drag race for the top three boats, and it was expected to tighten up coming through the Bahamas. ASSA ABLOY gained 10 miles on illbruck in six hours on Monday as illbruck ran into lighter winds.

Illbruck has made a remarkable comeback on the leg. A collision with rival SEB the first night out from Rio left illbruck with a fist-sized hole in its hull and other damage. The accident dropped illbruck to the back of fleet, but it used its speed advantage to catch up and eventually take the lead.

Later in the leg, illbruck's spinnaker blew out one night and the crew had to maneuver the boat so the shredded sail wouldn't get caught on the keel.

Just three days after this leg of the Volvo began, illbruck Challenge announced that it was pulling the plug on its America's Cup campaign. Kostecki would have skippered that crew, too, which was to have been Germany's first-ever America's Cup challenge.

"Everybody's disappointed but they understand the situation," said Kostecki, who has a home in the San Francisco Bay area but recently had been living in Germany to meet America's Cup residency requirements.

"We're all professional and I think everybody realizes we have a great opportunity right now that we can win the Volvo Ocean Race if we continue to focus on that," he said. "That's what we're really doing at the moment, and then we'll worry about our careers, I guess, after the Volvo Ocean Race."

The remaining four legs of the Volvo are 875 miles from Miami to Baltimore; 3,400 miles from Annapolis, Md., to La Rochelle, France; 1,075 miles to Goteborg, Sweden; and 250 miles to the finish in Kiel, Germany, on June 9.

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