The King opened this Thursday the 60th edition of the Barcelona International Boat Show, which brings together the main brands in the sector, and made a one-and-a-half-hour tour of the main exhibitors located at the Moll de la Fusta and the Moll d 'Spain. During the tour, on a day more typical of August than October, under a blazing sun, Felipe VI has talked with the heads of some nautical firms and has even boarded a ship from a Barcelona shipyard. As usual in recent years, the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, and the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, were not there.
The visit has started at Moll de la Fusta. The King was accompanied by the Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez; the Government delegate, Maria Eugènia Gay; and the first deputy mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, as well as the president of the Port of Barcelona, Damià Calvet. On the part of the Generalitat, there was no councilor and the highest authority was the general secretary and number two of the Department of Territory, Joan Jaume Oms, who avoided greeting the King, although he was in the entourage that accompanied the visit, in addition from the Secretary of Mobility of the Generalitat, Isidre Gavín. Also present were the president of Fira de Barcelona, Pau Relat; its general manager, Constantí Serrallonga; the president of the Salón Náutico, Luis Conde, and the leader of the PSC in Parliament, Salvador Illa, among others.
The first stands that the King has visited have been those of the Copa América 2024 and the Fundació Barcelona Capital Nàutica, and that of the Port of Barcelona, where he has been received by Damià Calvet, who has joined the entourage. Calvet, a member of the Junts executive, continues in his position, although after the departure of Junts from the Government his continuity is up in the air, since he is directly appointed by the president.
On his tour, Felipe VI has also visited the Navy space, as well as the exhibitors of the Touron, Jeanneau, Beneteau and Yamaha companies, in the Moll de la Fusta, and the Innovation Dock, where they have shown him three electric boats and hydrogen, one of them a prototype. Then, at the Moll d'Espanya, the delegation visited the Galician shipyard Rodmar and the Barcelona shipyard DeAntonio Yachts, where the King got on one of those fast boats, with an outboard motor, a D42 called Spectre.
The tour ended at Port Olímpic, where the King visited a new boat from Marina Estrella, a large Spanish distributor of different brands. Afterwards, he shared a courtesy lunch with some thirty businessmen and representatives of the Spanish nautical sector.
This Thursday is Felipe VI's fifth visit to Barcelona so far this year. The King came in February to inaugurate the Mobile and in April he returned for the inauguration of another of the main events organized at the Fira de Barcelona, the Salón Alimentaria. A month later, in May, he returned to the Catalan capital to participate in the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cercle d'Economia, and present the José Manuel Lara award, and together with Queen Letizia he presided over the award ceremony for the National Research Awards 2021, at the International Convention Center. Two months later, in July, the King came to Barcelona for one of the ceremonies that he is most excited about, the awards ceremony of the Princess of Girona Foundation, together with Queen Letizia, Princess Leonor and Infanta Sofía.
