Spy ships, vintage boats and vessels with a lot of history will meet in the Illes Balears Clàssics

Classic sailing returns to the Balearic Islands one more year with the Illes Balears Clàssics Regatta organized by the Club de Mar Mallorca. This year, in which the event reaches its 28th anniversary, will be a great edition with more than 30 boats registered, a figure that far exceeds recent editions.

The regatta maintains the three days of competition that recovered in the last edition after the sanitary restrictions. The first day of the event, Thursday, August 17, will be for registration and delivery of documentation in addition to welcoming the participants. From Friday to Sunday will come the competition with one or two races per day, depending on the weather. As in any other sporting event, the regatta will have its winners, but the most important triumph of the Regatta Illes Balears Clàssics is to bring together in the Bay of Palma these beauties of sailing, each with a story to tell, in many cases of more than a century.

This year the regatta will serve to celebrate the 100 years of seafaring life of the "Barbara", a yawl (two-masted sailing yacht) flying the Italian flag, which is visiting the Illes Balears Clàssics for the first time. This boat has a place in the history of sailing, as it was the first to mount a Marconi or Bermudian rig (triangular shaped sails), as opposed to the then usual Gaff sailing (with trapezoidal sails). However, she will not be the oldest of the units coming to Palma this year. That honor goes to the "Grayling", launched in England at the beginning of the 20th century, in 1900. Rafa Carrió recovered the boat when it had been stranded in a Valencian marina for almost two decades.

The "Gipsy 1927" of the Fundación Vela Clásica de España, which performed espionage duties during the Civil War, will also be present. The remains of shrapnel in its masts attest to its war adventures. It will not be the only 'spy ship' in Palma, as the schooner "So Fong", launched in Hong Kong in 1937, remained for years 'prisoner' in Vietnam under the accusation of spying for the United States, in the middle of the confrontation between the two countries. Also participating in the Illes Balears Clàssics will be the "Manitou", another yawl launched more than 80 years ago that served as a place of rest and relaxation for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a lover of sailing, during his tragically short term in the White House.

The commodore of the Club de Mar, Manuel Nadal, stressed during the presentation of the regatta, held this morning at the Museu Marítim de ses Voltes that "these days our club also becomes a real museum afloat where we can enjoy authentic jewels of history and navigation. Nadal also wanted to mention the presence of Mallorcan boats in the race and among them he mentioned the "Orion" and the "Rosendo", with home port in the Club de Mar itself, the "Marigan" or the "Margarita Estalindalamar", among others.

For his part, the general director of the Club de Mar, José Luis Arrom, insisted that "it is an honor for us to host these boats and we want to congratulate their owners, who continue to maintain these magnificent sailboats". Arrom has announced a special edition of the Illes Balears Clàssics on the occasion of the inauguration of the renovated facilities of the Club de Mar. According to his estimates, the event moves every year about 280 people in crews alone, a figure that would rise to 460 when adding staff and companions, so he calculated that the event represents an economic impact of approximately one million euros in just three days of competition.

The Illes Balears Clàssics of the Club de Mar is divided into two categories: Vintage Boats, pre-1950, and Classic Vessels, launched between 1950 and 1975, all of them built with traditional materials, mainly wood. But the RI Classic and Spirit of Tradition classes also participate, which include old boats that have been modified in some way. Finally, the boats that want to participate in the event without competing are registered in the Presence group. This regatta of vintage and classic boats is incorporated this year into the CIM Circuit, the most important classic sailing circuit in the Mediterranean.