Puig Vela Classica 2024: 12-M Fleet Racing in Barcelona
Great pictures (Nico Martinez) and words (Steffan Meyric-Hughes) from
Classic Boat Magazine this week.
“Eet’s the end of summer,” said the taxi driver, en route from the airport to Barcelona, partly because he’d just learned to say it on Duolingo, but mostly because of the heavy rain and great bolts of fork lightning in the sky above the Catalonian capital. Racing on the first day of the Vela Puig Regatta was called off, crews huddling under umbrellas and pottering around the Royal Barcelona Yacht Club in sliders and anoraks. People hid, waiting for the sun to come out and dry sails and, on the smaller yachts, laundry. The big news at this year’s Vela was the arrival of 13 of the world’s 12-M yachts, which were lined up a few steps away in the old port near the city centre, and sparkling in the sun the next morning before racing got underway.