palamos prepares to experience one of the candle festivities with the celebration of the 33 Palamós Optimist Trophy-17 Nations Cup. This regatta continues to sail at a record pace and it is that s550 boats will meet (limit established by the organization in charge of Club Nàutic Costa Brava/Vela Palamós) with sailors from 22 countries. The tests will start this Thursday and will last until Sunday in the bay of Palamós. As usual in recent years, the Palamós Optimist Trophy will serve as the culmination and delivery of the trophies of the Optimist Excellence Cup 2022-2023 Circuit, of which they have formed the regattas of Vigo, Palma, El Puerto de Santa María and Torrevieja.
The great novelty this year was the great Opening Ceremony in which more than half a thousand participants paraded this Wednesday along Passeig del Mar in Palamós in collaboration with the Pallapupas Association. The Palamós Optimist Trophy is the competition with the second largest number of boats in the world, in which sailors from the following countries will participate: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Great Britain, Croatia, Denmark, Spain, the United States, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland , Sweden, Thailand, Turkey and Ukraine.
The 2022 edition was won by the Catalan Daniel Garcia de la Casa (CN El Masnou), who has already made the leap to the 420 classand this year starts as favorite the Ukrainian Sviatoslav Madonich, fifth last year in Palamós and winner of the Lake Garda Country Cup, the City of Palma Trophy and the Euromarina Optimist Torrevieja. Of course, it will also be time to focus on the Spanish. The Catalan Joan Domingo (CN Cambrils), current runner-up in Spain, the Euromarina de Torrevieja and third in the City of Palma; Hugo Rodríguez (CN El Arenal), second in Palma and third in the Spanish Cup; and Blanca Ferrando (RCN Valencia), Spanish Women’s Champion. This is a prestigious regatta and illustrious winners include the Olympic medalist at Tokyo 2020, Joan Cardona, who won the title in 2012.
There will only be one race course and a total of 12 sleeves are expected to be held, three daily tests in each of the five groups. Which supposes a total of 15 departures every day of 110 boats each one of them; with the days of Thursday and Friday as qualifying and those of Saturday and Sunday as finals. As for the organization, since such a large number of boats are involved and the fact that the participants are minors, the security measures will be extreme.