Star class sailor Peter Bromby battled back from adversity yesterday to win the final race in the Bacardi Cup and finish third overall.

It was a major achievement by the Olympian who had seen all chances of defending his title blown away over the past week due to wind shifts that thwarted his progress in the Florida, USA, event.

As if that was not enough disaster, the Bermudian began yesterday by having to restart the final race and do a penalty turn after fouling the Committee boat.

"We took our penalty turn and came back through the fleet to win the race. We thought we had done enough to be second overall but we ended up third. We came back a long way today (yesterday)," said Bromby, speaking of the effort he and crew Martin Siese put in.

The difference, he explained, between yesterday and the earlier races was that wind conditions were much more favourable to them.

"They were pretty much our ideal conditions - ten to 12 knots of wind. Earlier on we had a lot of wind and really heavy wind is not best for us," he said. "Some of the other teams that have been sailing together for a lot longer than Martin and I, tend to do quite well in the heavy wind. As time goes on we'll get better. We're pretty happy we were able to get a top three out of this."

Despite the obvious disappointment of not retaining the Bacardi Cup, Bromby acknowledged "it's not bad company to be third in". Mark Reynolds and Paul Cayard finished first and second respectively.

"I can't help but think back to the first race when all we had was a run to get to the finish and we were in fourth and we ended up 19th in that race," he said. "Certainly (if we had ended fourth) that would have been enough points right there for us to have won overall.

"We had our chances. We were in the hunt and in the first two races we dug ourselves into a hole but, in the end, we hung around and kept coming back and had a number of top-seven finishes," he said.

Bromby and Siese will return home for a month before heading to Spain to collect their new boat which they will christen shortly thereafter in a competition in Palma.