To a warm welcome from fellow sailors, organisers and noisy, enthusiastic locals the Spanish flagged 1876 came in to Puerto Limon in ninth place this afternoon with Spain’s Pachi Rivero partnered by France’s Yves Parlier making a strong comeback in the last 36 hours. The pair lost more than 100 miles to Akena Verandas in recent days and fought back, gaining most of them back again.......

The duo were first to play the stealth card, working to the furthest north. For a long time they looked strong, emerging from the worst of the storm with a strong fifth place. They hung on for a long time until they were snared by the high pressure system. At times they were able to move well, but ultimately they struggled with lighter winds while their opposition were barrelling west in the trade winds.

It was a bold strategy, not unknown for the French co-skipper who has won this Transat twice

Parlier said:

“Our long descent with the high pressure system was costly. We were slowed down by the problem with the stay sail, could not go as quickly, and so didn’t manage to get to the trade winds. It has been a real pleasure to sail with Pachi, even though we had to spend a lot of time doing D.I.Y!”

“I am really happy to have finished the race with Pachi. We were behind a number of boats but also very close to them. It wasn’t easy because we lost our wind window going south to reach the trade winds. We had our fair share of technical problems too but Pachi did a great job keeping the boat moving, and we are happy to finally be here, as there were times when things were particularly hard and we weren’t sure if we were going to make it to the end of the race. I’m really pleased to have taken part, it has been a great battle,”

To a warm welcome from fellow sailors, organisers and noisy, enthusiastic locals the Spanish flagged 1876 came in to Puerto Limon in ninth place this afternoon with Spain’s Pachi Rivero partnered by France’s Yves Parlier making a strong comeback in the last 36 hours. The pair lost more than 100 miles to Akena Verandas in recent days and fought back, gaining most of them back again.......

The duo were first to play the stealth card, working to the furthest north. For a long time they looked strong, emerging from the worst of the storm with a strong fifth place. They hung on for a long time until they were snared by the high pressure system. At times they were able to move well, but ultimately they struggled with lighter winds while their opposition were barrelling west in the trade winds.

It was a bold strategy, not unknown for the French co-skipper who has won this Transat twice

Parlier said:

“Our long descent with the high pressure system was costly. We were slowed down by the problem with the stay sail, could not go as quickly, and so didn’t manage to get to the trade winds. It has been a real pleasure to sail with Pachi, even though we had to spend a lot of time doing D.I.Y!”

“I am really happy to have finished the race with Pachi. We were behind a number of boats but also very close to them. It wasn’t easy because we lost our wind window going south to reach the trade winds. We had our fair share of technical problems too but Pachi did a great job keeping the boat moving, and we are happy to finally be here, as there were times when things were particularly hard and we weren’t sure if we were going to make it to the end of the race. I’m really pleased to have taken part, it has been a great battle,”

“The worst moment was when the pilot system broke. We were sailing with three reefs and staysail and had about 45 knots of wind. The staysail broke and we were going to change to a storm jib, when the boat suddenly gybed on its own, with both of us on the bow sorting things out, and we broke four battens. That was the worst moment because it took us such a long time to repair everything.”