The Balearic nautical benchmarks of 2023 receive the Timón Award

Maria Bover (sailing), Àngels Moreno (canoeing), Malen Sart (fishing), RCN Palma (institution), La Setmana del Mar (sustainability), Jordi Jiménez (communication), Pedro Mus (career) and the Centinela project (innovation) have received tonight the awards given by Gaceta Náutica.

The most outstanding people and institutions of the Balearic nautical sector of the year were recognised tonight at the 8th Gaceta Náutica Timón Awards gala held at the Port Center in the port of Palma. The event, presented by journalist Cristina Roig, brought together two hundred people representing the maritime sector and recreational and sporting boating in the Islands.

The president of the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands, Javier Sanz, opened the event by welcoming the attendees and highlighting the importance that, over the years, these awards have acquired, the most important in the nautical sector in the Balearic Islands.

This season's sporting awards have had a markedly feminine character, as they have all gone to women from our islands. María Bover has been chosen as the best sailor, Àngels Moreno, the most outstanding canoeist, and Malen Sart, the most outstanding fisherwoman of the year.

María Bover completed a practically perfect season in 2023, in which she won the women's J80 World Championship, the Iberdrola Sailing League and the Copa del Rey MAPFRE. The canoeist from the Reial Club Nàutic Port de Pollença Àngels Moreno takes over from her brother, winner of this award in 2022, by winning the silver and bronze medals at the European Under 23 Championships and another silver at the Under 23 World Championship. For her part, Malén Sart has gone down in the history of the sport by becoming the only female underwater fishing world champion, winning her second title this year in Laredo.

The award for the most outstanding organization went to the Real Club Náutico de Palma (RCNP), coinciding with the celebration of its 75th anniversary and in recognition of its undeniable commitment to the promotion of sport, social activity and maritime culture in the Balearic Islands. The director of Gaceta Náutica, Elena Pipó, highlighted the work of the RCNP as "an example of what a yacht club should be" and considered it "unusual and incomprehensible" that it has not renewed the port concession it has managed since its foundation.

One of the novelties of this year's edition of the Gaceta Náutica Timón Awards was the Redeia prize for the Best Social and Sustainability Initiative. The Setmana del Mar, an environmental education and marine coexistence project of the CN Sant Antoni de Portmany, which is about to celebrate three decades of life, has made its debut in this category.

The award in the communication section went to Jordi Jiménez, a reference in Balearic sports radio. Gaceta Náutica recognises his commitment to sea sports and his defence of the Balearic yacht clubs through his programme on the COPE radio station.

The businessman Pedro Mus, founder of the Audax Marina boatyard and who has spent a lifetime dedicated to the world of shipyards and nautical repairs, has won the Compass Award, an award that recognises the entire life of one of the stalwarts in the marine industry sector in the Balearic Islands.

Finally, the Timón Prize in the Innovation category, awarded in collaboration with the Balearic Islands Port Authority and endowed with 2,500 euros, went to the Centinela project, an autonomous system for decontamination of port waters. The winning project is the work of the Mallorcan company Desafío en Azul and has been developed, among others, by the doctor in Biology Jordi Lalucat, the naval engineer specializing in propulsion with renewable energies Joan Bauzà and the underwater robotics engineer Antoni Martorell.

The jury for the Innovation Helm Award was made up of the APB's director of Quality, Environment, Innovation and Corporate Social Responsibility, Jorge Martín; the professor of Computer Architecture and Technology and head of the Systems, Robotics and Vision research group at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), Gabriel Oliver; and the director of Gaceta Náutica, Elena Pipó.

The jury awarded two runners-up prizes to the Portnet initiative by Blue Room Innovation, a set of digital services that increases transparency and efficiency in waste collection in ports, and to the Garau Ingenieros firm for its Cícero project, a management service that seeks to recover the transparency and ecosystems of the sheltered waters of ports through natural processes.