The German-backed Illbruck won the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, sailing into Sydney Harbour yesterday 73 minutes ahead of SEB to repeat her opening-stage victory from Southampton to Cape Town.

Illbruck's race had nearly ended off the Cape of Good Hope when the yacht started taking on water in 35-knot winds after an inspection port gave way under the pounding from heavy seas.

The flood was contained but almost immediately Illbruck's masthead instruments fell off.

"For two hours we weren't thinking about racing, we were surviving," said captain John Kostecki. "We were coming back to shore at one point but we managed to stop the leak and bail the water out, but we gave the fleet a 20-mile headstart."

SEB - which led the fleet three days out from Sydney -- broke the 24-hour record for the race on November 20th, clocking 460.4 miles in the Southern Ocean.

"It was crazy, fascinating, definitely dangerous and everything was on the edge," said skipper Gunnar Krantz. SEB was sixth on the first leg.

New Zealand's Grant Dalton, skipper of Amer Sports One, faced a trip to hospital for checks on suspected broken ribs after his boat crossed in fifth place.

Dalton fell heavily as the yacht battled a gale in the notoriously rough Bass Strait off southern Australia on Monday.

"Dalton was thrown into the side of the yacht when it fell off a wave during a gale," a race official said.

Dalton, second in the first leg, told officials he was in the galley when he "was suddenly launched into space" and fell heavily against a stove.

News Corporation, with British skipper Jez Fanstone at the helm, took her second successive third placing, with Djuice fourth.

Illbruck crossed the line in front of the Sydney Opera House at around 11.20 local time, taking 22 days, 13 hours, 22 minutes and 26 seconds for the 6,550-mile leg.

Ilbruck took a commanding lead over SEB in the Bass Strait on Sunday when the Swedish boat's biggest spinnaker blew out and parts of it jammed on the rudder underneath.

Amer Sports One had a rough ride on the second leg, with crewman Keith Kilpatrick plucked from the yacht off Australia's southwest coast a week ago after he fell seriously ill with a blocked intestine.

Kilpatrick was later given a clean bill of health but he needed painkillers and a saline drip as the yacht battled its way across the freezing Southern Ocean.

The third leg to Auckland starts on December 26th.