Abra Sailing Story: A Gulf Adventure

«Any period in our long history – the Sporting Club was founded in 1898 – has been very interesting. The club has always remained faithful to some values, traditions and customs that have existed since its foundation and that distinguish it as a benchmark in amateur sailing,” emphasizes Zubiría, who is convinced that the crew of the remembered ‘Chonta’ that competed in Marblehead in 1910 would never have imagined that, more than 100 years later, two J80 class boats from his same club – José Azqueta’s ‘Biobizz’, which also became runner-up in the world in 2021, and the Sailing School’s ‘Fhimasa’, youth champion – were going to be among the first in a World Cup, just 70 miles south of where they raced.

A beautiful comparison that defines a club “formed by a group of friends united by the love of the sea,” he remarks. Antonio Zubiría has documented himself exhaustively for years to offer hundreds of data and information “in a most significant story in our history. I trust that it is enough to convey what sailing has meant during this long period of time. For me it has also served to value, even more, the relevance of our club in this sport,” he details.

Forefathers

On December 20, the Rooster Regatta was held once again, “whose large fleet sailing through the Bilbao estuary reminds us of our first boats. That beautiful image remembers our ancestors. They taught us to dribble, being competitive and with sportsmanship. “They taught us the satisfaction of winning a regatta and the joy of having a friend win it,” says Zubiría, who thus continues the legacy of his father Juan Manuel Zubiría, the Count of Zubiría, who wrote another publication on the subject that is already out of print. His son Antonio has updated the information, bringing it to the present day with a result “as beautiful as the Count’s,” he highlights.

In its pages appear the people, the boats, the regattas and anecdotes that reflect what has been experienced in the Las Arenas club from its constitution to these days. Juan Ignacio Gomeza writes in the prologue that “the example of the elders such as Juan Manuel Zubiría, Luis Alberto Ribed, Juan Manuel Alonso-Allende –world champion in the Snipe class in 1957 with Gabriel Laiseca–, Juan Olábarri, Jorge Churruca, José Luis de Ugarte and other greats of this club, whom we have met and treated, called us to the adventure of regattas and made us look to England, to the offshore English sea culture, with the hope of learning that know-how and of experiencing for ourselves those regattas that they had run.

Zubiría’s book goes from the Sonderklasse regattas of 1905 to the metric classes (6, 8, 10 and 15 meters) at the beginning of the last century, before and after the great war, to the Snipe and Star from the 1940s. Then, the new cruisers of the 60s and the first climbs to England with the ‘Mizar’ aboard the ferry Patricia for the Channel Race 1968, the first Fastnet del ‘Disparate’ in 1971, the ‘Commodores Cup’, the Atlantic crossings of the ‘Zorongos’, the solo regattas of José Luis de Ugarte, the dinghy sailing races in their different classes, the national and international J80 championships and a long journey that Zubiría breaks down in detail, photographs and many anecdotes. Well, that’s it, a book that projects the passion for the sea from the waters of the Abra. As pretty as the Count’s.