Royal Connections
Kind Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenie of Battenburg were married in 1906, one year before they acquire Osborne, the King’s first Six Metre. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2022
Of course, Zubiria was not the only early adopter of the Six Metre class; after all, competitive sailing cannot exist without competition. The earliest Six Metre cohort included a number of well-connected individuals, the most notable of which was King Alfonso XIII. The King was the proud owner of Osborne, a 1907 Fife. The boat was presumably named after Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, where the king’s young new wife, Victoria Eugenie of Battenburg, had spent much of her childhood. Alfonso had married Victoria, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, in 1906, just one year before the Six Metre was built.
Over the years names linked to the royal family stuck with the boat. In 1910 she was registered to Jose Luis de Bayo in Bilbao, but the boat carried the name Alfonso XIII. Likewise, in 1913, now registered in Alicante to F. Alberola-Canterac, she was named Victoria y Alfonso.
The Spanish royal family were very keen and extremely active sailors, and no doubt the success of the Six Metre class in the early part of the 20th century was down to their encouragement of healthy competition. The royal couple would regularly holiday in the north of Spain in the summer months, staying with their family in the coastal towns of San Sebastien or Santander. Spanish publication ABC would regularly report throughout the 1910s and ‘20s on the young couple’s adventures on the water, often on their Six Metre. In August 1928, for example, on the occasion of the Real Club Maritimo Regatta, ABC declared: “Reinó gran animación en el pabellón marítimo en el momento de embarcar Sus Majestades el Rey y la Reina y los infantes en sus yates respectivos.”
“There was great excitement in the maritime pavilion at the moment of embarkation of Their Majesties the King and Queen and their children on their respective yachts.”
Figueroa supports this idea: “Es sin duda en el Cantábrico, donde la Familia Real se aficiona a la navegación a vela y pone de moda un deporte que empieza a tener una gran aceptación en todo el litoral español. La creación de clubes náuticos y de re gatas inspirados en los británicos, tuvieron gran auge en estos años.”
“It was undoubtedly the Cantabrian Sea where the Royal Family took up sailing and made this sport fashionable, which started the popularity of sailing along the Spanish coastline. The creation of sailing clubs and regattas, inspired by the British, was very popular during these years.”
The King and Queen owned quite a number of yachts over the first three decades of the 20th century, among them three Six Metres. The King’s second Six Metre was Asphodel, which he acquired in 1912. She was designed by Laws and was built in Burnham in the UK and was soon passed on to HRH Don Carlos de Borbon. The third royal Six was Barandil in 1913, one of the few Six Metres designed by F de Baraza and built in Spain at the Astilleros del Nervión in Bilbao.
Asphodel, seen here c. 1926. From archive record DVWK.1.2.
It was that year, 1913, that a new competition was created specifically for the Six Metre class in Spain. The Mediterranean Cup was sponsored by seven yacht clubs all along the southern coast of the country, from Barcelona in the east to Malaga in the west. It was perhaps an attempt to encourage more Six Metres to the south of the country, but the draw of the Royal connections in the north remained strong. In 1915, for example, the records suggest that there were fourteen Sixes in northern ports, and nine in the south.