Social Affairs and Sports will assume the construction of the centre in the port of Molinar for 486,000 euros.

Social Affairs and the Port Authority of the Balearic Islands have signed an agreement that responds to a historical demand

Sailing and windsurfing in the Balearic Islands

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The sailing federations, the Port Authority and the Regional Ministry of Social Affairs and Sports have today visited the area where the new facilities will be located.

Sailing and windsurfing in the Balearic Islands will have space for training and technical training. The Department of Social Affairs and Sports and the Balearic Islands Port Authority (APB) has reached an agreement to set up a specific space in the port of Molinar, in Palma. Until now, the sailing and windsurfing technification programme of the Sports Technification Centre of the Balearic Islands (CTEIB) was carried out in spaces and facilities ceded by the sports clubs. This is a response to a historical demand to have its public facility for the practice of technification.

The space will be ceded by the APB, while the Department of Social Affairs and Sports will assume the construction and management of the new centre, through the Foundation for Balearic Sports, at an estimated cost of 486,000 euros.

Today the Councillor for Social Affairs and Sports, Fina Santiago, the Director General of Sports, Carles Gonyalons, the President of the APB, Jaume Colom, the President of the Sailing Federation of the Balearic Islands, Catalina Darder, and the President of the Spanish Sailing Federation, José Javier Sanz, visited the space where the new facilities will be located. Also in attendance were the sailing and windsurfing technification programme’s technical directors.

“This is a very important day for the Balearic sport and society in general because we have obtained a public space for sailing and windsurfing training. The Calanova area should never have been privatised, it was ideal for this sport and for the training centre, an area that was integrated into the city, known all over the world and that has given us excellent champions. It could not be that a technification centre that gives us so many good results should not have a public space and have to ask favours of the clubs to be able to carry out this activity. Therefore, recovering the deficit of this public space was one of the objectives of the Conselleria”, said the councillor Fina Santiago, who thanked both the federation as the driving force behind this project and the Port Authority for assuming the need and generosity of ceding the space, which “will be managed by agreement with a cession for 15 years”, she added.

The president of the APB, Jaume Colom, has positively valued the signing of this agreement, which guarantees that citizens have access to the sea and to basic sports and, at the same time, that the Balearic Islands continue to be a pioneer in the practice of sailing.

The space where the new facilities will be located is Caló d’en Rigo. Already in the project for the remodelling of the space that the APB made in 2021, the installation of a sailing school of 511 square metres was proposed, taking advantage of a new section of the breakwater that has a deck that is currently an overpass that is accessed using a ramp and stairs.

Project

The project has been drawn up by the Department of Mobility and Housing. The planned action includes an office for the CTEIB sailing and windsurfing programmes, a room for coaches, a classroom, changing rooms, a gymnasium, boat storage and a workshop. Access to each of the spaces is directly from the outside, but the office, the coaches’ room and the classroom are connected internally. The boat storage room and the workshop are also connected internally.

Promoting sport

These new facilities aim to continue promoting the training of technified sportsmen and women. However, other activities of the Balearic Sailing Federation and other federations related to the maritime environment will also be carried out in this space, such as the monitoring of young sporting talent.

It is worth remembering that the Balearic sailing and windsurfing athletes are currently achieving outstanding results. One example is the bronze medal of the sailor Joan Cardona in the last Olympic Games in Tokyo, in 2020. Cardona is one of the athletes who has gone through the CTEIB’s technification programme.