'HM Hospitales', the new benchmark in the Barcelona sea

With the Jug of the Hundred Guineas, a trophy that rewards the champion of the America’s Cup, as an eyewitness at the awards ceremony, the HM Hospitales de Óscar Chaves managed to rise yesterday as the great winner of the 50th edition of the Conde de Godó in ORC 0-1.

The boat El Balís thus took over from Rafael Carbonell’s Rats on Fire, which had been the winner in recent years and has a record of 13 victories in the benchmark regatta of the Real Club Náutico de Barcelona. Javier Godó, Count of Godó; Jordi Puig, president of the RCNB, and Grant Dalton, CEO of the Copa del América, were in charge of presenting the prizes to the champions.

The Rats on Fire, skippered by Jorge, the youngest of the four Martínez Doreste brothers (the others are Luis, Gustavo and Cristina), who participated in the Godó Trophy, did not make it easy.

The two boats had finished tied at 15 points, but the tiebreaker went to the boat skippered by Fernando León, having two partial victories by none of Martínez Doreste’s. The HM Hospitales crew was truly luxurious. She had three Olympic champions on board, in addition to Fernando León: Pepote Ballester and Kiko Sánchez Luna.

In the rest of ORC, in A Dos, which made two coastal, Ia Orana managed to become the brilliant winner.

In ORC 2, the Valencian M8 did it; in ORC 3, the local L’Immens-Laplaza Assessors; in ORC 4-5, the Astérix from Port Balis, and in the J70 one-designs, Noticia knew how to take advantage of an error by Alcaidesa Marina, who had recorded an offline, to win the regatta. While in the Women’s Cup, the Mallorcan Team RCNP-Baleària, led by the young María Bover, was able to overcome the Alicante Dorsia Covirán led by Núria Sánchez Nomdedeu and skippered by the double Olympic medalist Natalia Via-Dufresne.

If the Conde de Godó Trophy had started with light winds on Thursday and Friday, the regattas on Saturday and Sunday were perfect, and ended with a 15-knot gait, completing the program and allowing the fleet to enjoy sailing in light and medium wind conditions, a magnificent end to a great week of regattas.