This past weekend, the latest edition of the Spanish Snipe Class Championship was held in the waters of Santander, with great success in participation and impeccable organization by the Real Club Marítimo de Santander. The three days of competition were characterized by gentle breezes that ranged between 8 and 11 knots of intensity.
The first day was sailed inside the bay with winds that did not exceed 8 knots from the west and with many areas of different pressures and many
roles, which greatly complicated the tactics and made the snipists work to the maximum. On the other two days, the committee decided to take the fleet to the open sea, where the wind increased its intensity a little, but the regatta field remained complicated.
Among the participants were leading crews from several countries such as Alfredo González and Cristina Sánchez from Lanzarote, current world champions; Gustavo and Rafael del Castillo from Gran Canaria, recent champions of the Canary Islands Cup; the Belgians Manu Hens and Alexnadre Tinoco, who were always in the top positions; or the Argentinians Julio Alsogaray and Malena Sciarra, serious favorites for the next world championship who had a bad start to the championship that condemned them to be out of the podium, despite having two excellent last days with a 2nd, a 3rd and two 1sts.
The snipe “Lanzarote ESD”, crewed by González and Sánchez, was always one of the clear favorites for the national triumph, maintaining the yellow maiot that identified them as leaders until the last round. The rivals who stood up to him the most were several teams such as Jordi Triay and Enric Noguera from Menorca, who were positioned in second place after the first day and who finished as the third best Spanish boat, or Víctor Pérez and Luca Rosa from the Can Pastilla nautical school in Mallorca, who with a first and a fifth on the first day were placed as provisional leaders, and without a doubt the also Canarian Gustavo and Rafael “Yeyé” del Castillo aboard the “HSN-Livvo” who stood up to the Lanzarote natives
fighting until the end.
Alfredo González and Cristian Sánchez went out on the water on the last day with the championship quite on track for gold, but they failed in the first round on Sunday and scored a 19th, which was a clear danger to their final triumph. Guti and Yeyé del Castillo were very few points behind the lead after finishing 4th in this regatta and not yet having a bad result in their locker. The championship was between them, the two Canarian boats carried out a frantic match-race between them from the start of the last round, and those from the RCN of Gran Canaria managed to score a penalty with collision included to those from Lanzarote, but after an impeccable navigation and an epic comeback, Alfredo González and Cristian Sánchez managed to gradually climb positions from the last positions of the fleet to finish in third position, which gave them enough margin to proclaim themselves as new Spanish champions.
Photo: Gustavo and Rafael del Castillo, leading the national fleet in the 4th round of the championship The rest of the Canarian sailors had a very notable championship, finishing in ninth position the duo formed by Miguel Ángel Lasso and Tomás Fuentes from Lanzarote, aboard the “África” and Nete Armas with Miguel Bethencourt, also from Lanzarote, who closed the top ten. In twentieth place Pedro “Fula” de León finished together with Óscar Pattenden, ten places further back was the place of Matías García and Álvaro Bernal. “Tomajua”, the boat of the Naval Regatta Commission of the Canary Islands of Antonio de Ugarte and Joaquín Rivadulla finished in 41st position and in 48th it was for the veteran Pedro Ferrer with Yaimur Hernández.
