Friday, May 10, 2013.- The town of Baiona hosts this weekend the I International Optimist Meeting, with the participation of two hundred boats arriving from the neighboring countries of France and Portugal. The Gauls arrived at Val Miñor during the course of the morning of this Friday, making a first contact with the natural environment of the Baiona council and the Yacht Club, to leave for the Bay of Baiona in the middle of the afternoon, where they carried out the training official.
During the course of Saturday morning, the rest of the Galician and Portuguese fleet will arrive at the Monte Real facilities, to form a volume of sailboats that will approach two hundred.
This morning, workers from the Baiona City Council finalized the preparations at Playa de la Ribera, where an access ramp to the sea has been installed on the Baiona sandbank. Meanwhile, the sports technicians of the Yacht Club anchored two floating lanes as a nautical corridor to safely guide the sailboats towards the regatta field.
The first Top or starting horn will be given at 2:00 p.m., with the forecast, by the Regatta Committee chaired by Fernando Giraldo, of carrying out three tasks, those scheduled for this first day of the Meeting.
The weather conditions offer a bonanza in the component, which will be from the northeast, with intensities that will range between 8 and 12 knots. There will not be much sea and the wave will accompany the wind.
Two fields will be set up, one for the long-distance Gold and Silver Groups, and another smaller one for school children. The first of them will have two paths, in which the gold participants will perform a trapeze called OUT-IN, that is, sailing from outside to inside, ending in a windward-leeward, while the silver participants will only circumnavigate the trapezoidal shape of the field in its outline. The little ones will make a simple cane.
After the return to land, both the Baiona City Council and Monte Real organize a convivial dinner at Camping Bayona-Playa, celebrating a fellowship party as a way of coexistence between the three Euroregions that take part in the sporting event. Raffle of gifts and surprises will be the basis of the evening.
Civil Protection and Local Police will be in charge of traffic in Baiona, so that it is fluid and agile, in the face of the massive arrival of large trailers that transport the boats with their respective inflatable coach boats.
On Sunday the day will be more early, starting the tests at 11.00 in the morning.
The first International Optimist Meeting, born from the initiative of the Bayonne City Council and the Monte Real Yacht Club of Bayonne, is made possible thanks to the collaboration of the Galician Sailing Federation, the AGCIO (Galician Association International Class Optimist), Galician Sports of the Xunta de Galicia, Galicia Tourism, Pontevedra Provincial Council, Rías Baixas Tourism, Novagalicia Banco, Carrefour, Coca Cola, Camping Bayona Playa, Baitra, Paradores and Panorama Vela.
