The official start of the Mediterranean’s premier sailing competition is fast approaching. The MAPFRE King’s Cup was inaugurated last Saturday, but the races won’t begin until Tuesday at noon. At the Royal Yacht Club of Palma, the hours leading up to the event are already filled with competitive tension and seemingly endless, meticulous adjustments, amid a frantic pace of activity among the participating crews. More than 100 boats from 20 countries are putting the final touches on their preparations before the big moment. That doesn’t mean, however, that there isn’t room for quiet reflection. In the period leading up to the competition, the Club has screened Cáscara de Nuez, the feature-length documentary in which director and producer Miguel Ángel Tobías has attempted to capture, for the big screen, a treatise on the human values that define sailing. A message of effort, sacrifice, and harmony serves as a final send-off to the participants before they set sail.
Among them will be Felipe VI, who already had the opportunity to board the Hispania this Monday and see for himself the condition of the ship and its crew. The monarch arrived at the Port of Porto Pi at the wheel of his own car, a notable detail that particularly caught the attention of the media present (on other occasions, a driver would have driven the vehicle). There, he was met by the captain of his previous ship, the Aifos, Admiral Jaime Rodríguez Toubes, and the rest of the Hispania’s crew, all of whom are members of the Spanish Navy. After greeting the crew members and briefly chatting with them, Felipe VI – who was wearing a white polo shirt with the name ‘Aifos’ – left Porto Pi and returned to the Marivent Palace. It was not until a little later, around noon, that he re-boarded the ship with the rest of the crew and set sail as part of the training exercises.
The King has been in Palma since last Wednesday, when he arrived from Lima after attending the inauguration of Peru’s new president, Keiko Fujimori. Although his schedule has allowed him some rest in recent days, Felipe VI has followed with great concern the fires in Madrid, Ávila, and Castile-La Mancha and the migration crisis in Ceuta – issues he discussed with the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, in the Balearic capital.
While the King was already turning his attention to the marine environment, Queen Letizia focused on the world of cinema. As is tradition, Her Majesty presided over the closing ceremony of the Atlántida Film Fest, marking her first public appearance in Palma this summer. On this occasion, she was accompanied by artists of the caliber of Javier Bardem, Victoria Luengo, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Raúl Arévalo, and Melina Matthews.
The Sea and Sailing on the Big Screen
The sea and cinema. Two facets of a Mallorcan summer that are inextricably linked to the Royal Family and, apparently, to each other as well (to top it all off, the festival takes its name from an island that sank into the ocean). A very fruitful relationship –Captains Courageous, Life of Pi, Titanic, Kon-Tiki, All Is Lost… – that Christopher Nolan revisits this summer with his Odyssey and that Miguel Angel Tobías – who is also a close friend of the Queen; the connections never end—he also wanted to celebrate with a screening of Cáscara de nuez at the makeshift open-air cinema on the terrace of the Nautical Club. “I had been to Palma before, but never during the King’s Cup. I’ve been watching it on television for many years, like most of us who don’t live on the island, and I never would have imagined that one day I would be here opening an edition with a documentary about the sea and sailing. For me, it’s a dream I never imagined could come true,” said a visibly moved Tobías, who is internationally recognized for his socially conscious productions.
With a runtime of 84 minutes, the film offers a glimpse into the fragility and resilience of human beings, the value of teamwork, and the ability to connect with others when the distractions of daily life disappear. It chronicles the month-long journey of a small sailboat from Spain to the Caribbean, with a crew of people between the ages of 17 and 80 who had never met before.
I’ve been filming documentaries all over the world for twenty years, in very difficult situations, and I can say that Cáscara de Nuez has been the most difficult project of my career. Spending more than thirty days on the Atlantic, with a camera in my hands, suffering from seasickness for practically twenty-four hours a day, and constantly having to decide what to focus on has been a huge effort. Anyone who has been on a boat will understand immediately; those who haven’t, will understand when they see the film.
For Manu Fraga, director of the RCNP, the film screening is part of an effort to promote the values of sailing, beyond the regattas. “With Cáscara de Nuez, we are taking the #MoreThanJustARegatta philosophy a step further: the Cup is not just competition; it is also culture, reflection, and values. This documentary is about teamwork, overcoming obstacles, and human connection, which is exactly what sailing represents and what we want to convey.” The sporting program begins tomorrow, Tuesday, for five of the six participating classes and for 84 of the approximately one hundred teams competing for the title. The Felipe VI Hispania, the new vessel of the Spanish Navy’s Racing Commission, is competing in the Abanca ORC 0 class in a competition that, in Fraga’s words, will be “one of the best in the history of the King’s Cup.” Like something out of a movie.
