King Felipe VI made his debut on Monday aboard the Hispania, the Navy’s new sailboat, which he will race starting tomorrow in the 44th edition of the Copa del Rey Mapfre, during an official training session on the eve of the competition’s start.
Around noon, the monarch arrived at the Porto Pi naval station behind the wheel of his car, where the captain of the Aifos, Admiral Jaime Rodríguez Toubes, and the rest of the Hispania’s crew— all of whom are members of the Navy, before setting sail in the Bay of Palma. Wearing a white polo shirt bearing the name “Aifos”—in memory of his previous vessel—the King joined his crew on the way to the training session, which began at 1:00 p.m.
The Hispania was docked at Porto Pi alongside the Aifos, which it has replaced as the Navy’s main regatta vessel and which had set out shortly before for its own training session, as it will also be taking part in the competition.
The vessel was acquired by the Navy—officially last March, after the contract was awarded to the company David Mas Yacht Equipment S.L.—for officer training, as the institution has traditionally relied on a state-of-the-art racing boat: first the Sirius, then the Aifos, and now this sailboat. It is a powerful monohull just over 15 meters in length, designed for high-level competition in the ORC class, which comes to resolve the Ministry of Defense’s long search to provide the Navy with a high-performance vessel, suitable both for advanced officer training and for representing the institution at the highest competitive level, following the failed attempts in 2019 with the Nautor’s Swan shipyard and the stalled 2023 project.
The Hispania is actually the former Vesper, an American-crewed sailboat—the David Team—that was crowned the overall winner of last year’s tournament, comfortably surpassing the sixth-place finish achieved at that time by the Aifos. Prior to that, it had competed in the United States under the Quantum banner, before being adapted to the demanding GL52 class.
Felipe VI arrived in Palma last Wednesday afternoon from Lima, where he had attended the inauguration of Peru’s new president, Keiko Fujimori. Upon his arrival in the Balearic capital, he held the traditional summer meeting with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, and since then had been following the migration crisis in Ceuta with concern from the Marivent Palace, the royal family’s residence in Mallorca, without going out to train on the boat, even though the rest of the crew had been doing so in recent days. Prior to that, the monarch had endured weeks of intense work, marked by monitoring the wildfires that affected Madrid, Ávila, and Castilla-La Mancha, visiting evacuees in Villamanta, and coordinating institutional efforts from Palma.
Next Tuesday, August 4, the King and Queen will host the traditional reception at Marivent for officials and representatives of Balearic society. The King plans to participate in the regatta until next Thursday afternoon, when he will travel to Cali for the inauguration of Abelardo de la Espriella as the new president of Colombia, before returning to Palma for the Copa del Rey trophy ceremony, scheduled for Saturday, August 8, at the Royal Palace of La Almudaina.
