The Spanish pailebote is calling at Sète until April 9th and open to visitors.
As soon as the Götheborg left, the Pascual Flores arrived at the quay! The first of the boats whose presence has been confirmed for the next edition of Stopover in Sète (March 26 to April 1, 2024), is moored on the Quai d’Alger until April 9 in the morning.
The story begins in 1917
With the Pascual Flores, part of the history of the merchant ship is also being written. And can revive the memories of our oldest Sétois, who saw this type of pailebote land – or trifle as it was called here – the holds filled with citrus fruits. A boat that was built in 1917 in Torrevieja, southern Spain by Antonio Mari Aguirre, known as “Temporal”.
When the boat spent a year under water, torpedoed in the middle of a civil war
While the Civil War was raging in Spain, on June 8, 1938, the Pascual Flores, hit by a Heinkel 59 torpedo-bomber seaplane, ended up sinking in the port of Castillon. It remained thus one year under water in the port, until, on June 4, 1939, once the conflict was over, it was decided to raise it to the surface. It will be towed to the port of Valencia where it will remain for three months to be repaired. Before returning, on September 6 of the same year, to Torrevieja.
And which owes its name to the Valencian shipowner Pascual Flores Bonavente. Who thus ordered two identical ships with the names of two of his children, the Pascual Flores therefore, and the Carmen Flores, which can now be admired at the maritime museum of Barcelona under the name of Santa Eulalia.
The fierte of Torrevieja
The boat is today the pride of Torrevieja, which finally bought the ship in 1999 to transform it into a symbol of its past, where the “sailing boats of Torrevieja sailed the seven seas”: in the first half of the 20th century, the Torrevieja’s sailing fleet was indeed the largest in the Mediterranean, with nearly 200 registered boats for 6,000 inhabitants.
Promoting the cabotage tradition
The ship has undergone several restoration works, which means that today only about 30% of the original parts remain. Since October 30, 2020, thanks to a collaboration agreement between the City of Torrevieja and the Nao Victoria Foundation, and after six months of work in the shipyards of Huelva, the Pascual Flores is now intended to promote Torrevieja and its maritime tradition of cabotage around the world. But also has a function of school boat, where young sailors can practice before taking their grades.
