The 41st Copa del Rey Mapfre kicks off with Felipe VI determined to dispute the victory
After the electoral storm, and before returning in a few days to the eye of the political hurricane to pilot the puzzle of the investiture, King Felipe VI put himself on Friday at the helm of the Aifos, the sailboat with which he competes every year in the regatta most important event in European professional sailing: the Copa del Rey Mapfre. A competition that celebrates its 41st summer and that these days brings together 1,300 sailors enrolled in one hundred boats at the regatta course in the Bay of Palma and on the jetties of the Real Club Náutico.
The King has cleared his summer schedule as much as possible to work hard with his regatta team. With them he will try to raise the trophy that bears his name, but which until now he has never won. For days on the docks of Palma the comment has been circulating among the sailors that this year the Monarch has a special determination to fight for victory with his ship, owned by the Navy, with which he will train all weekend.
The 41st edition of the Copa del Rey Mapfre de Vela started the day before yesterday with regular training. Starting tomorrow, Monday, the timed regattas will begin in the eight official categories, including the powerful women's cup.
One hundred teams of 16 different nationalities participate, among them some of the favorite sailboats, the winners of the main categories last year and aspiring to reconquer glory. Also the Italian team Scugnizza, who will fight to repeat their victory in the Majorica ORC 3 class. Or the Spanish Javier Banderas, winner of the ORC 2 category last year and brother of the well-known actor Antonio Banderas, who will once again compete on board the Soho Caixabank Theater.
The main local contender is the Mallorcan Pedro Vaquer, owner of the Nadir, of the Andratx Sailing Club, winner in 2022 in the ClubSwan 42 category.
The trend in international sailing in recent years is confirmed and the competitive modality in ORC (Offshore Racing Congress Rules) continues to gain strength, the sophisticated international compensation system (handicap) that allows sailboats of different classes to compete in the same regatta. then compensating the times and the classification according to the millimetric and computerized way the characteristics of each boat. Seventy of the one hundred registered boats will do so in ORC categories, including Felipe VI's Aifos, a TP 52 sailboat built in 2005 that competes in ORC 1.
The fleet of exclusive Swans, the formula one of the sea designed by the Finnish shipyard Nautor's Swan, also docks these days at the Club Náutico docks.. All of them will compete in their own category of one design. That is to say, in the regatta of exactly the same boats that compete in real time, with no compensating handicap. A pure regatta, old-fashioned but with the technology of the most elite racing boats in the world, valued at more than one million euros.
As a novelty, this year the coastal regatta will be recovered, the modern version of the old classic competitions that costed the southern part of the island. One day of the week will be reserved for this modality and its layout will depend on the weather of the chosen day.