Some are retired, others are students, many have asked for two days off. Minimum age: 18 years. The maximum is decided by health and the desire to get involved – there is an 83-year-old volunteer – in the regatta that for four days will put Vilanova i la Geltrú in the global spotlight of sailing. The first preliminary of the Copa del América starts in four days. All the organizational machinery is in place, including the volunteer system. In total, 350 people will support races in which the defender of the Copa del America and the five teams that aspire to take it from them will participate. A preliminary that anticipates, on a smaller scale but with equal intensity, what Barcelona will experience in the fall of 2024.
The volunteer pool, for Vilanova and also for the great Barcelona regatta, officially opened on June 7. On August 15, when the list for the preliminary was closed (there is time until November 30 to sign up for Barcelona), 850 volunteers had registered. Of them, about 200 are foreigners, “mainly from France and Italy, but volunteers have also signed up from New Zealand (where the defending team is from),” explains Xavier Prat, director of the America's Cup volunteer program. In the case of Vilanova, “we have prioritized all the volunteers in the municipality and then we have opened the focus,” adds Prat. Not in vain, the volunteer program has also been designed as a channel for citizen involvement in this first-class event.
The successful experience with the volunteers of the Olympic Barcelona impressed Grant Dalton, the head of the America's Cup, who proposed adapting, more than the model, the Olympic and participatory spirit of '92. “That was an incredible experience,” he corroborates. Jordi Fernandez. He was then 24 years old and was a volleyball volunteer. Now, at 55, he has asked for a few days of vacation – he works at the Library of Catalonia – and will support the activities held around the Race Village, in the Port de Vilanova square, the epicenter of the contest on dry land. with program activities from noon to 11 p.m.
"We didn't want the volunteers to replace hired people, but we did want them to be able to provide an extra service to the visitors and to the organization and, above all, we wanted the people of Vilanova to get involved in the event," Prat maintains. For this reason, after defining the positions that could be filled with volunteers, it was decided to summon 350 people, prioritizing the residents of the municipality who had registered and the surrounding areas. Three areas were defined for the volunteers: sea (500 people and all of them with sailing or nautical experience), land and support for the media (there are accredited journalists from all over the world) and especially for television broadcasts.
For next Tuesday and Wednesday, training sessions have been convened, in which the volunteers will be explained what the Copa del América is, the magnitude of the competition and the scenarios set up in Vilanova as a general framework and a brief training in first aid and security, in addition to the specific instructions for each position. On land, they will mainly be information tasks for visitors, both in the Port square and in strategic spaces, such as the beaches, from where the races can be followed, or the accesses to the city, indicating the spaces enabled for parking and the schedules. of the shuttle buses.
