• 22/10/2021

The 'Cala Millor' sets course for Astilleros de Mallorca, where it was built in 1946

At the end of the 19th century, more than a hundred vessels similar to the Cala Millor sailed in the Balearic Islands. Today, only the Cala Millor and the Rafael Verdera survive. This type of vessel was mainly built in the Balearic Islands and on the Mediterranean coast of mainland Spain, “with the best pine wood, dried for years in the shade,” as old naval chronicles still recount. Their design was inspired by British coastal trading ships. For a long time, they were the only way to arrive at or leave the Balearic Islands. They transported people and goods, always under sail. Lemons, highly valued for their vitamin C content, as well as salt, wine and oil, were the main products they transported, especially to southern France and the Spanish coast.

The last two schooners

The Cala Millor is the only one still afloat among the schooners built in Palma, as the Rafael Verdera, very similar though even older, was built in Ibiza. Interestingly, today the Cala Millor is based in Ibiza and the Rafael Verdera in Palma. Both share a fascinating history and a worrying present.

The Cala Millor

The Cala Millor, after painstaking and costly restoration work carried out by its current owners, Nicole Legler and Gerald Delgado, is now well known for being usually moored on the front line of the port of Ibiza, from where it mainly sails as an educational ship for schools and institutes in Ibiza. It was built in 1946 on the same slipways where Astilleros de Mallorca is now located, in the area known as Es Mollet; it was the last of its kind and perhaps the largest.

With a length of 42 meters, a beam of 8 meters and a draft of 3.2 meters, it displaces 171 tons and is currently rigged with 12 sails on two masts, which classifies it as a schooner, although it is more commonly known as a “pailebote.” It was originally commissioned by Naviera Mallorquina and, after several decades of regular operations in the Balearics, it was acquired by Naviera Matutes. Later, while its contemporaries were being scrapped, the Cala Millor went to sail in German waters, where it endured serious hardships but fortunately survived them all. It was eventually acquired by its current owners, who brought it back to the islands.

Without consistent institutional support, its owners struggle every day to keep the Cala Millor as a ship accessible to all citizens.

Source:
https://www.diariodemallorca.es/sociedad/2021/10/22/cala-millor-pone-rumbo-astilleros-58672444.html