This week begins the third edition of the Spanish Sailing League-Loterías y Apuestas del Estado Trophy, and two national events will be held to select the team that will represent Spain in the 2022 Sailing Champions League. The RCN of Arrecife will be the only ones to attend the competition from the Islands
Canarias.
The Spanish Sailing League is a novel competition organized by the Royal Spanish Sailing Federation, with the sponsorship of Loterías y Apuestas del Estado, which aims to promote competitiveness among the main nautical clubs in the country to select among them the best teams to represent Spain in the Sailing Champions League, which is the European Sailing League. Whoever is proclaimed champion of the national league will go directly to the European grand final that is held every year in Porto Cervo (Italy), the rest of the Spanish podium will have the option of sailing in the final if they qualify previously in other European qualifiers.
The first of the events of the Spanish Sailing League will take place from September 3 to 6 in El Arenal (Mallorca) and the second will be held in Calpe (Alicante) from October 15 to 17. Each event will have its particular classification, but the points obtained in all the regattas will be computed globally, so at the end of the last day of competition in Calpe a general classification of all the participating teams will be obtained.
The competition model is in fleet, with windward-leeward courses and based on round robins, that is, all teams will have the opportunity to compete against each other. The crews change boats sleeve after sleeve according to a previous draw, in this way it seeks to reward the best team and not the best boat.
Positive experience from the Canary Islands
In previous editions, the participating Canary Islands teams achieved excellent results. In 2019, the Lanzarote team (RCN Arrecife) was proclaimed champion with Nete Armas at the helm, while the runners-up were the RCN of Gran Canaria of Oman Barreiros. In 2020, the RCN of Valencia sneaked into this Canary podium in first position with Axel Rogers as skipper, while those of Lanzarote won the runner-up and those of Gran Canaria dropped to 4th place, in favor of the Galicians of the Monte Real Club de Yates de Bayona who reached the bronze after a spectacular comeback at the end of the championship.
In this 2021 edition, the Lanzarote team will be the only Canary Islands representative and will try to play a good role against its rivals from the peninsula, which are a total of 8 top-level teams: RCN Valencia, RCN Calpe, RCN Palma de Mallorca, CN Arenal, CN Altea, RCN Torrevieja and RCR de Alicante.
Lanzarote bets on young promises of Canarian sailing
In the team of the island of Lanzarote under the pennant of the RCN of Arrecife combines experience and veteran status with the talent of the young promises of our sailing. In this sense, the team is composed of the world champions of Swan 45 Ricardo Terrades and Cristian Sánchez, together with Pedro de León (champion of the Spanish Sailing League in 2019) and the young Alberto Morales of 18 years (bronze in the world championship of Optimist of 2018 and also bronze in the world championship 420 in 2021) and Gabriela Gil of only 16 years and with a great projection in this sport.
The skipper will be Alberto Morales, Ricardo Terrades and Pedro de León will be trimming, the bow maneuver will be the responsibility of Cristian Sánchez and the young Gabriela Gil will perform the functions of piano.
The skill of the crews is rewarded
The boats of the competition are provided by the organizing clubs and in principle are all on equal terms. In the first event of El Arenal, they will sail aboard the Bavaria B-One and in Calpe will be the Tom 28 max, while in the European final they sail in J70. Despite being different, both classes of boats have similar characteristics such as a length of approximately 7 m, a maximum crew weight of 350 kg, rigged with mainsail jib and spinnaker.
As a fundamental requirement, all members of each team must be sailors from the same nautical club, having their federative licenses issued by said club. In each team must be represented both genders (male and female), the minimum age to participate is 16 years and the total weight of the crew can not exceed 350 kilograms.