Zoe Mai, a contemporary classic at the Copa del Rey Repsol (Photo Nico Martínez)

This is the first time that the German shipowner's "Zoe Mai," Jan Van der Horst, competes in the Menorca Classic Sailing King's Cup... The history of this "Viking 'ship - its design and line were drawn from a book of the Museum of Oshlo- deserves attention for having been built by one person - the shipowner himself - and for its special inclusion in the section of Classics, where generally only ships launched between 1950 and 1975 compete.

On the personal side, Jan van der Horst (Kiel, September 1965) says that he is "one more link" of a German marinera family with Norwegian descent... "in Laboe, a little town near Kiel, I started to forge my dream..." one day I want to build a ship, "but I want to do it alone, without haste, and to my liking, I said, and, look, I met the goal.", the Zoe Mai pattern is proud.

Van der Horst left Kiel and in 1991 went to Norway. There he fell in love with the prototype Double Ender, "the viking design by anthonomasia... the famous Norwegian designer Sigurd Herbern named this type of boat", says Van der Horst. And "quite clearly" the pattern returned to Germany.

The construction of the Zoe Mai lasted from 1995 to 2003. It was made in Germany with local wood, "specifies van der Horst." I didn't want tropical wood, "he says." You know, German manies... "

Van der Horst estimates that the current value of his ship is about 400,000 euros, although it is sentimentally priceless... the crew is made up of an Australian, a Mallorcan, a German and a Catalan, Eva, who is "the true commander, although he exercises a trimmer, both in the bow and in the stern."

The German navigator, who has been open in Palma for four years, explains that last year he decided to take Zoe Mai to Mallorca. As it is not attached to any Nautical Club, the Zoe Mai competes, for the first time in Mahón, in the category Classics, with the German flag as distinctive.

The inclusion of Zoe Mai in this class is due, according to the president of the Spanish Association of Barches of Epoch and Classics (AEBEC), Leonardo García de Vincentiis, to the "Although it was not built between 1950 and 1973 as a mark of the regulation of Classics, it is made exactly like the rest of the ships of that class, it is a calco, a pure replica, both in design and in materials."

Garcia de Vincentiis, who declares himself a romantic of the ships, says someone from Zoe Mai told him one day that, perhaps, the wood of this ship was cut according to tradition, "that is, on full moon nights in April, when the plant's lympha in northern Europe is denser, healthier, more robust..." To this extent, Van der Horst's commitment to respect the spirit of the classical candle came.