44Cup Marina Jandía - Another 44Cup first
by 44Cup 15 Nov 02:39 PST
44Cup Marina Jandía © Nico Martinez / 44Cup
The 2025 season of RC44 racing concludes next week with the 44Cup Marina Jandía. This year the high performance owner-driver one design class has made its debut in Scheveningen in the Netherlands and rounds off the year with another first - Marina Jandía near the southern tip of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands.
This is the latest marina to be created by Calero Marinas, who are the hosts of event with Puertos Canarios and the support of the Canary Islands, the Cabildo of Fuerteventura and Pajara town.
Although the buildings surrounding it are still to be built, Marina Jandía is already open and represents the first major marina to be built on Fuerteventura. The 10 RC44s will only take up a small fraction of its overall berthing, which in total can accommodate craft from 6m LOA all the way up to 50m superyachts across its 310 berths.
"We are very excited because it's an important project for Calero Marinas to add Fuerteventura to our portfolio," says Daniel Calero, who heads the Calero family's real estate division and in his spare time also skippers the Lanzarote Calero Sailing Team RC44 on the 44Cup circuit. Fuerteventura is the neighbouring island to Lanzarote, lying directly to its south. Both islands have volcanic origins and share a hilly, desert-like landscape, only instead of Lanzarote's famous black beaches, those on slender Fuerteventura are long and golden. Because of this and the typical northeasterly trade winds that blow here, the island is considered a watersports mecca and for the last 37 years has hosted the Fuerteventura World Cup, originally for windsurfers but today also for wingfoils, at a venue close to Marina Jandía. The 44Cup venue also lies next door to the Jandía Nature Reserve, which extends most of the way to Puerto de la Cruz, Fuerteventura's southwesternmost point where several spectacular near virgin beaches exist.
The Canary Islands in general are well known for their brisk northeasterly trade wind conditions. Despite coming from nearby Lanzarote, Daniel Calero admits: "I'm not sure if we can consider ourselves 'locals' in Fuerteventura. I think we will discover the area with all the other teams. I think it could be pretty similar to the Virgin Islands." Marina Jandía is located on the south end of Fuerteventura and so is well protected from the trade winds, but offers flexibility for 44Cup racing with PRO Maria Torrijo able to move the course east if she want to find more wind and even Atlantic Ocean-type swell. Like the east side of Lanzarote where the RC44s usually race in the Canary Islands, off Marina Jandía it can be gusty with a short chop if the wind is blowing off the land.
On board Lanzarote Calero Sailing Team for this event they have the 2024 J/80 World Champion Alberto Padron joining as a trimmer - another Canary Islands sailor, from Gran Canaria.
Meanwhile Daniel Calero himself is currently enjoying social media stardom, after taking an involuntary swim when he was rudely pitched overboard during a broach during the 44Cup Scheveningen - the incident, along with his safe recovery, were captured on video from all angles. WATCH HERE. "I'm still shocked about the impact that the video has received," Calero admits. "The video received more than a million views, which is amazing. I have been receiving many calls from around the world asking 'hey Danny, how was the water?' All with a very sarcastic humour! Next time I will grab Alfredo [Gonzalez, tactician] to keep myself on board!"
Calero is already looking forward to next season and figuring out how to elevate his Lanzarote Calero Sailing Team up the 44Cup leaderboard. "It's a very competitive and demanding class. So, we are working on 2026 to be as strong and the most competitive we can be."
10 teams are competing in the 44Cup Marina Jandía with practice racing taking on Wednesday 19 November and racing proper over 20-23 November at the end of which the winner of both the event and of the 2025 44Cup will be decided.