By land, air, and especially by sea, the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Civil Guard are coordinating the large security device that must protect the preliminaries of the America's Cup that is being held this weekend, if the rain allows it, in the waters of Vilanova and la Geltrú.
The town of Garraf is occupied by the bodies and security forces and all the essential protection and emergency actors in an event of this nature. One gets an idea of the large number of services involved by taking a look at the third floor of the Mossos police station in Vilanova. A room has been transformed into a Cecor, a state-of-the-art coordination center in which all actors are represented, including the organization.
The monitors in the room receive real-time images from the cameras in and around the port area, others that have been installed for the occasion, and the drones, helicopters and police vehicles that participate.
All those in uniform know perfectly well what they have to do and how far their powers go, beyond the noise that some politicians are making these days. The most obvious presence in Vilanova is that of the Civil Guard and the Mossos.
At sea, the Generalitat police have their four boats that have been in charge of inspecting ships for a few days now and that this weekend will bring order to the movements of entry and exit to the port. More than 800 boats have registered just to witness the preliminaries of the regattas, which will not be able to fish and will have to be sailing at all hours.
The Civil Guard has moved a large part of its maritime service fleet to Vilanova with boats visible from any corner of the port.
They will be in charge of safety at sea and shielding the navigation area of the competition. One of its main boats, the Riu Riaza, houses the operations center, the On Water Operations Center (OWOC), from where the people responsible for the organization, the referees of the test, the representatives of the Guard Civil, Maritime Rescue, Maritime Captaincy and the Mossos will be following the regatta and making decisions conditioned by the evolution of the wind, currents or any other element that may condition the test.
Both the Civil Guard and the Mossos have mobilized their underwater units to inspect if required or for prevention. Just yesterday, police divers carried out checks in view of the possibility that there had been a hydrocarbon leak that was polluting the waters of the port. It was a false alarm.
Apart from this major operation at sea, the device has a deployment on land to provide security to the thousands of visitors and authorities who will travel to Vilanova this weekend to follow the event. The public security units of the Mossos, the municipal police of Vilanova work here, as well as specialist units such as the mobile, canine or Tedax brigade, which have moved and been stationed at the Garraf. The Mossos also have several pairs of the GEI (Special Intervention Group) that can travel to a specific point by sea in a boat or by air in a helicopter to act in the event of a specific emergency.
This weekend's device will serve to show that everything is ready and working for the big sporting event of the Cup next year in Barcelona.
