Spaniards sail into history

Iker Martínez and Xabi Fernández do not understand limitations. The Spanish pair, Olympic champions in Athens in 2004, on Tuesday achieved the greatest feat in the history of Spanish transatlantic sailing when their boat, the Mapfre, finished the Barcelona World Race in second place. The event is one of the most demanding in the sport and requires participants to sail around the world without stopping.

Martínez and Fernández could not catch the Virbac Paprec 3, skippered by Jean-Pierre Dick with his compatriot Loïck Peyron. It was Dick's second victory in the Barcelona World Race after his triumph with Damian Foxall in 2008. Just after 11.15am on Tuesday, the Mapfre crossed the finish line installed in Barcelona's port after 94 days, 17 minutes and 35 seconds at sea; a tough 25,200-mile odyssey in which, unlike Dick, who was forced to dock twice for repairs, Martínez and Fernández did not set foot on dry land, an additional merit for the Spanish pair. In addition to the cold, the occasional wrath of the open ocean and lack of sleep, other setbacks included a shortage of food. During the final few days they were forced to ration their stores as many of the contents had gone off and they had run out of fuel.

The achievement of the Spanish sailors, triple world champions in the 49er category, is also an historic result for the sport in Spain. Until now, the best results by Spanish sailors were a third-place finish in the 1993-94 Whitbread Round the World Race by Javier de la Gándara and another third place in the 2007-08 Volvo Ocean Race, the successor to the Whitbread, by Pedro Campos.

"We are thrilled, all of this is very nice. This is an ideal situation for us. Until 14 months ago we had never sailed an IMOCA 60 and so we could not aspire to very much. But the race was very good, much better than we expected. We've made a huge step. Now we can aspire to anything," said Martínez.

"It's a dream come true," added Fernández. "We achieved our goal of finishing the race without stopping. It was nearly 95 days during which we enjoyed ideal conditions. Luckily we didn't have any very bad moments."