For 52 years, Pepe Gandara introduced the optimal class into Baiona's waters
For 52 years, Pepe Gandara introduced the optimal class into Baiona's waters
José Gandara receiving an award from Antonio Ruiz and Delia Dominguez with Pepe Gandara in the background... was the month of November 1970 in the former meeting room of Monte Real (Photo family archive of César Casqueiro)
The Monte Real Club de Yates de Baiona will commemorate at the end of this month the half-century life of the Optimist class in Galicia, at the level of official competition, celebrating the fiftieth edition of the Galician Championship that the club itself hosted for the first time in 1970... on board the "Canario" and the "Tortuga," the brothers José and Javier de la Gandara would be winners (first and second respectively) of that first edition, which had been held on the 22 and 23 August of the far-off year of 1970 under the name "I Regional Championship of Optista."
17 young regatists from the School of Vela de La Foz, the Royal Nautical Club of Sanxenxo, the Real Nautical Club of Vigo, the Nautical Club of Panxón and the Monte Real themselves met during those two summer days in the bay of Baionese to discuss several tests in a triangular field of Olympic tour.
After the Gandara brothers, the third podium of that first Optimist championship was for the "Anduriña IV," tripulated by Santiago Campos; Pablo Vasconcellos was fourth on board the "Bayona II"; and the "Don Ramón," by Ramón Alonso, of RCN Vigo, signed the fifth position.
Photos from the early 1970s of the collection of César Casqueiro... in the foreground the "Tortuga" with Javier Gandara to the commanders...
The unforgettable Pepe Gandara the great valor of the quarry of Monte Real
With the celebration of the first Galician Championship of Optimist, the Mount Real Club of Yates gave a great boost for the consolidation of a class that came to Galicia a few years before the hand of Pepe Gandara, the Patriarch of the Gandara, with the support of his wife Toya Curbera... Gandara knew about this new type of ship by the American magazine - Popular Mechanics Magazine- in which simple plans were published with which, in principle, any person with some tools and a little bit of manna, could make his own wood Optimist. After being built in Barcelona, Gandara decided to bring them Galicia. The first Optimist who sailed in Galician waters in the year 68 called him Don Andrés, in honor of his little son. In the year 69 there was already in Baionese Bay - the School of La Foz that Antonio Ruiz- 15 units of these new sailboats, known as the "Ferramentos," because they were built by a carpenter of Ladeira known by that name, with nylon candles made in a company of awnings of Vigo. The press at that time congratulated the Baionese club for - helping to create many young patterns that in the future will constitute the endowments of the many cruise ships with which they count the sports units of the river de Vigo, he said textually. And so it was... because those children are today some of the leading regatists who sail in the Galician rias.
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