Antonio Espada (ESP) Hall of Fame

Antonio Espada (ESP)

2022 inductee

Contributor

Antonio Espada Tarradelles, was born in Oviedo -Spain- in August 1949, the son of Catalan parents, who soon moved to Barcelona where he grew up and developed his activity.

A great lover of the sea and sailing, his voyage began in 1964 with a Norwegian Tumlaren, built in the Canary Islands, later sailing in Vaurien and 470 and building a Ten-Ten designed by John Illingworth and Primrose with his brother.

His history in the Snipe begins sailing in Catalonia in the 70s, with a Skipper built by Erling Olsen and studying other boats in his fleet, he observes great differences between boats according to their center of gravity and weight of the mast, which leads him to study the influence of the weight distribution on the boat.

In 1975, through Arturo Delgado, at that time Secretary for Europe of SCIRA, he obtained the first set of springs to perform the Snipe Inertia Test that arrived in Europe and built an electronic timer that facilitated the rigorous performance of this measurement, giving it a great impetus to the realization of the MOI.

With Ted Wells, he exchanged ideas, and achieved that the upper face of the centerboard trunk must be parallel to the Base Line.

Between 1976 and 1983 at the request of Juan Manuel Alonso Allende, president of the RFEV who was Snipe World Champion in 1957, he led the dinghy sailing measurement committee, organizing in Celanova (Mallorca) with Alonso Allende and Tony Watts the first International Symposium organized by IYRU on small boats measurement, actually the origin of the measurer’s rules.

In 1977, on the occasion of the Junior World Championship that was held in Ciudadela (Balearic Islands), he found the opportunity to investigate more about Snipes from other countries built by different Shipyards and managed to make the MOI to the boats of this World Championship.

There, Pedro Sisti, coach of the Argentine Snipe team, takes the stopwatch used to measure the Championship.

Subsequently, and at the request of Isidro Rigau, Vice President of the Barcelona 92 Olympic Committee, he was responsible for performing the Lamboley Test at 470 at the Barcelona 92 Olympics.

In 1983, when personal reasons forced him to move away from this work, Paco Pérez National Secretary in Spain asked him to form a group of snipe measurers to take care of the Class, he did so and Pepe Pérez was among the attendees, who would be the one he will continue his task in the Snipe Class.

He participated in the Porto World Championship, when Giorgio Brèzich was the President of the Rules Committee, and Antonio Bari the Chief Measurer

Between 1983 and 2012 he was always the “maestro” of the measurers in Spain, solving all the doubts and problems that arose until 2012 when he was elected SCIRA Chief Measurer, developing and presenting to SCIRA a project for the approval of boatyards and new procedures for marking and sealing equipment that, although not yet officially in force, much of it has been running for years and with proposal 22-07 presented to SCIRA by Luis Soubié, if approved, snipe measurements will be expedited at the same time that they would guarantee more the homogeneity of all the boats.

In 2016, he was diagnosed with a Colon Tumor, which entailed ChemoTherapy Sessions, and Radiotherapy, which produced insensitivity in his hands and feet, which made him resign as Chief Measurer before the La Coruña World Cup, but not before leaving a World Sailing Measurer as a proposal for the new Chief Measurer, presenting Luis Gonzalez for the position.

In 2016, and as a result of the discovery of an old Snipe from 1935 in Altafulla, he managed to introduce it to the Museu Maritim de Barcelona, achieving a SNIPE Monographic exhibition between July and September 2016, visited, among others, by the current Commodore, Zbgniew Rakocy

Three phrases that he has tirelessly repeated to his students define his philosophy:

“There is no tolerance for tolerances”

“The best is the enemy of the good”

“The only difference between an oversized Snipe and the Queen Mary is its size. Neither of them is a SNIPE”.

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