The Club Nautico de Ibiza asks the APB the solution of the tender for its facilities

The Club Nautico de Ibiza (CNI) has sent to the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands (APB) a letter requesting to be awarded the tender for the management of its facilities, or failing that, desist from holding the competition.

The request is based, among other reasons, that the port agency has not proposed any realistic solution to the serious safety problems of the port and should not accept - for bald and technically infeasible - the proposal included in the offer of the commercial company Puertos y Litorales Sostenibles (PLS) to contain the force of the waves by a simple floating structure.

The thesis of the Club Nautico de Ibiza is based on various technical reports attesting to the ineffectiveness of the pontoon included in the PLS project to address "the problems of safety and operability of the facility" referred to in the tender documents and calls on the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands to make use of its power to withdraw from the tender.

The Club Nautico de Ibiza considers that the duration established in the tender - a Temporary Occupancy Authorization (AOT) of one year extendable year by year with a maximum of three - does not allow, by far, to redeem the necessary work to build a fixed seawall to ensure the safety of the facility, and understands that this work should be assumed directly by the APB. All the engineering reports collected by the club for the preparation of the AOT's offer coincide in determining that any structure that is not fixed "does not solve or minimize the port's safety problems". These opinions are already in the possession of the APB. 

"This is the reason why CNI did not submit a relevant investment offer in this chapter, because we understand, and we have made it known on multiple occasions to the APB, that the only solution is to draft a containment dock project that gives security to the dock ... And more when the club came from throwing into the sea 1.5 million in investments executed following the specifications of the previous temporary occupation, "says Vicent Canals, director of the Club Nautico de Ibiza.

The CNI believes that the floating pontoon PLS is "useless" and a "toast to the sun" to unbalance the balance of bids, and therefore sees no other way out than "either your offer is selected as the most advantageous, or that the Port Authority desists from the process, to convene a new one with realistic specifications and to ensure the safety and promotion of sport and social responsibility in the marine industry," something that, in his view, is not feasible without setting maximum rates for moorings.

In this sense, the historic entity pitiusa, close to the celebration of its centenary, recalls that the company aspiring to take over the management of the facilities lacks any experience and background in the promotion and teaching of sport, as required by the specifications, and says that only for this reason Ports and Sustainable Coastal, whose main responsible have appeared published in the press "disturbing information", should have already been discarded.

As an example, the Ibiza Yacht Club stresses that its offer allows you to enjoy a mooring of ten meters for a price of 6,087 euros, compared to the 23,161 euros that the same owner should pay if Sustainable Ports and Coasts, against all logic, would win the contest. The fact that this company has set the length considered "social boating" at 8 meters is contrary to port legislation, which extends de facto this 'category' to 12 meters. More than a hundred Ibizan shipowners of average purchasing power could be deprived of their moorings if it ends up applying the brutal tariff increase proposed by PLS.

Another aspect demonstrating the risk of gentrification facing the Club Nautico de Ibiza is the abysmal difference in the offers for the lease of the restaurant and cafeteria of the facility. While the club sets the price at 72,000 euros per year to ensure that the concessionaire can offer popular prices, PLS proposes a rent of 356,000, i.e. five times higher.

"In short," explains the president of the CNI, Juan Marí, "what is at issue here is whether the expulsion of the Ibicencos from a club with almost 100 years of history, unanimously recognized for its sporting and social work, and which has received the support of the autonomous and state chambers that represent the citizens, can be produced for the benefit of a company whose only desire is economic profit and which has openly presented a speculative and technically dubious project.