Several of them grabbed King Juan Carlos to throw him dressed into the water, but at the last moment only Pedro Campos dared and they fell together into the swimming pool of the Palma Yacht Club. Both in their immaculate white polo shirts and shorts. It was the summer of 1993, they had just won the Copa del Rey de sailing and launching the skipper was a tradition in regattas, but only Campos had the confidence to give the final push to the head of state. The anecdote, which was immortalized in a photograph, illustrates the relationship of familiarity that they already had in those years and that is maintained. Campos, a Galician businessman and one of the most successful Spanish sailors, is also one of the closest friends of King Juan Carlos, and his regular host in Sanxenxo. As in previous visits to this municipality in the Ría de Pontevedra, the king will stay in a chalet owned by his friend, on the outskirts of town, very close to the Nautical Club that Campos presides over.
Born in Cuntis (Pontevedra), Pedro Campos Calvo-Sotelo is 72 years old and the fifth of eleven siblings. His mother, Enriqueta Calvo-Sotelo, cousin of former Prime Minister Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, died last April at the age of 101. His father, Marcial Campos, an engineer, who also died in a traffic accident in 1995, was a pioneer in the spa business in Spain and came to preside over the World Spa Organization, as well as owning the Cuntis spa, the largest in Pontevedra. And he was also a great passionate about navigation. “My father was a sailor, I am a sailor,” Pedro Campos pointed out a few years ago, in an interview in which he explained that he had started sailing at the age of three, on the boat that his father rented in the summers. the Arousa estuary.
But of the whole family it is Pedro Campos who achieved international fame for his outstanding resume in the world of regattas, being the only skipper in the history of sailing to have won five consecutive world championships. He began to dedicate himself professionally to regattas, in parallel to his studies as a naval engineer. He was already famous before he met Juan Carlos I, and he was precocious: at the age of 18 he won his first title in Spain in the Snipe class in the youth category, and won his first world title in 1976, in Monaco, at the age of 26. . That's where his business facet also starts, which he started at the end of the 70's when he set up the firm Velas Campos. Together with the Lastra brothers, they began to manufacture sails for their own use in his family's home in Madrid, but the company grew and ended up joining the American giant North Sails, which he came to preside over.
It was in the 1980s when he met the king, through another of the great friends of the then head of state, the Catalan businessman Josep Cusí. The passion for the sea and navigation strengthened the relationship between the three: Cusí was the owner of the successive Bribón ships of King Juan Carlos and Campos competed alongside him.
However, the friendship between Campos and the king was strengthened after the abdication of Juan Carlos I in 2014. In a delicate physical condition, as a result of various operations, especially hip operations, the king had had to abandon sailing, since which is an activity that requires a lot of movement on the boat, and I missed it. But Campos found the solution, with a vintage sailboat, one of the 6 Meter class –boats between 10 and 11 meters in length- in which the skipper could sit on the deck. "Although she is a small, uncomfortable and wet boat, because you are always at the edge of the water, it has the advantage that the skipper is very safe and protected," Campos explained in an interview. They sailed together again and won the first world title for a boat from the Rogue saga, in Vancouver (Canada). King Juan Carlos was 79 years old.
Campos is used to being told about his friendship with the king in any interview and he does not hesitate to answer. It was he who confirmed this Tuesday that King Juan Carlos would go to Sanxenxo and that he would stay at his house. But he is extremely discreet about the details of their personal relationship. “Of our conversations, 99% talk about sailing, about regattas”, he assured some time ago. "On board he makes you forget who he is, he's one more. He likes to win, he's very competitive, but he knows how to accept defeat. He's a great sailor and has a great sense of humor," he also said about the king.
In his personal life, Pedro Campos has two daughters, Begoña and Paloma, from his first marriage to Begoña Gil de Barroeta, whom he divorced. His current wife is Cristina Franze, whom he married in 2017 and the celebration was not lacking in his best friends, including King Juan Carlos.
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