Everything is ready in Galicia for the celebration of the 37th Prince of Asturias Trophy, which will cast off in Bayonne under the organization of the Monte Real Yacht Club and the Naval Military School.
With the weather pending from a storm coming from Greenland, a huge influx of boats that left the club’s pontoons without space and the presence of world and Spanish champions among the crews, this Friday the first tests of the competition will be held.
On the previous day, the closing of registrations left a majority of Galician, Portuguese and Cantabrian boats on the lists, and an Olympic sailor raffling the sailboats for the Ladies Cup.
Although there are only a few hours left before the start of the competition, and by now the weather forecast is usually clear, no one from the regatta committee has yet dared to give an exact forecast of what is going to happen these three days of the Prince of Asturias Trophy .
A storm from Greenland is approaching the peninsular northwest and a period of instability is expected, although it is not known with certainty when it will reach Galicia. For now, from the organization they trust that the rain will give the sailors a break and the wind, which in principle looks like it will blow from the west, will remain above 9 or 10 knots, with peaks of up to 14.
If it remains boarded and the conditions are favorable, the fleet of the largest boats, grouped in the different ORC classes, will complete two windward-leeward runs, between buoys. Two upwind and two stern in each of the tests will serve to begin to measure forces and release the markers.
In the event that the wind does not pick up and there are difficulties in designing the course, the regatta committee has prepared up to ten different coastal routes, all along the Vigo estuary although with different obligatory crossing points.
Intensity and emotion from minute zero
If the competitive models of previous years are repeated, the opening day will not only serve to take the pulse of the regatta fields and will already be one of the most exciting in the trophy. The crews usually arrive in Bayonne with a lot of energy and try to demonstrate their power by putting all the meat on the grill from the first tests.
The starting signal will be, on the first day, the latest of the three days. The ORC fleet will hear it at three in the afternoon and half an hour later, at half past three, it will be the turn of the J80 and the Ladies Cup girls.
Once the tests are over, the well-deserved rest of the fleet in the village located in the club’s gardens will complete the opening day on Friday. Ahead, the Prince of Asturias Trophy will still have two more days to define the winners’ podiums.
A fleet with a Galician, Portuguese and Cantabrian accent
Galician, Portuguese and Cantabrian, will be, in this order, the accents that will be heard the most in a Prince of Asturias Trophy that, favored by the arrival of boats for the Spanish J80 Championship to be held in Bayonne in just a few days, has brought together more than 80 sailboats.
“This year we have achieved a very good number of boats. There was a certain fear about the downward evolution that is being seen in many of the regattas that have been held in recent months in Galicia, but the truth is that the Prince never fails. People want to come to Baiona not only to compete, but also to enjoy with friends”, assures the sports director of Monte Real, Roy Alonso.
The figure of 70 boats that the club established as a participation limit to ensure the comfort of the crews in the club’s space, was finally exceeded and the organization looked for alternatives for the location of the boats. “We have ordered the pontoon of the caravel Pinta and placed buoys so that all those who wanted to be here, yes or yes, could be”, says Roy Alonso, who appreciates the understanding of the owners and crew to be in the regatta despite the lack of space.
There is also a great presence of Portuguese boats, with 12 sailboats in competition and a large number of Portuguese crew members, such as the Yessito by Rui Ramada, the Marías by Manel Cunha, the Xekmatt by Hugo and Joao Prista, the Defender by Nuno Vasconcelos or the Farofino by Edgar Pimenta.
World and Spanish champions in the J80 fleet
With more than 30 registered units, the J80 class is the most numerous in the trophy and from which a greater spectacle is expected due to the quality of the crews. They will sail inside the bay of Bayonne, they will compete in real time and they will compete, if the wind allows it, three double courses of the windward leeward type between buoys.
Among the participants we will see the Etnia Barcelona de Peru Múgica (RCM Santander), current champion of the Prince and defender of the title; the Andalusian GP Bullhound led by Per Roman, who in the last European event of the class was one step away from getting on the podium and who this time has the recent snipe world champion Alfredo González on board; the Spanish runner-up Biobizz, led by José Azqueta (RCM del Abra RSC), or the Cantabrian Solintal, of the former J80 world champion Ignacio Camino.
All of them will have to face each other with a very powerful local fleet, among which the boats of the Monte Real Club de Yates predominate and in which there are two crews that, due to their trajectory and victories in recent seasons, stand out above the rest. They are those of Okofen by Javier de la Gándara and El Alboroto by Juan Carlos Ameneiro.
The women’s 6×6 of the Ladies Cup
The J80 will share the regatta field and direct judgment inside the bay of Bayonne with the 36 sailors of the Ladies Cup, which in its twenty-sixth edition reaffirms itself as the most traditional women’s sailing competition on the Spanish nautical scene.
The six crews competing this year come from Alicante, Mallorca, Bayonne, Madrid, the Basque Country and Santander. Six teams of six sailors aboard six identical boats, the Figaro Beneteau that the Monte Real Club de Yates gives them for the competition.
This Thursday, on the previous day, the draw was made for them, and the Olympic sailor Nico Rodríguez, who is also sponsored by Gestilar in his race to the Paris Olympics together with Silvia Más in 470, participated as an innocent hand. mixed.
