The important International Competition in Palma de Mallorca ends with successes of Beuchat, with Oscar Cervantes, Cressi Team and good results by Pathos.
Every January the Federation Baleares organizes three different competitions named Semana Master Palma de Mallorca. This year they were organized in honor of Pedro Carbonell, three time world champ, four time euroafrican champ and eight time spanish champ. The first day was reserved for national teams, the second day teams with no limits could compete, and the third the competition was dedicated to the spearos with invitation. This year’s innovation was competition of brands, the CMAS World Cup for Brands. Here, eight brand teams were competing together with three nations. This has been the last time as next year only the World Cup for Brands will be disputed. The legend of spearfishing Jose Pep Amengual was present at the weighing phase at Real Club Nautico every day. He was truly surprised when he met again his skipper from first World cup that he won 1973. Walter Faixo came only to see Amengual once again after 44 years. Meeting was very emotional and tears came not just on their eyes.
On the second day in the same room were five ex World Champs for total nine titles – Jose Pep Amengual (3 titles), Pedro Carbonell (3 titles), Alberto March (1 title), Daniel Gospic (1 title) and Xavi Blanco (1 title). It has been a day to remember…
Competition has followed the specific technical rules dof the Spanish events.
II CMAS World Cup for Nations
Spain with Xavi Blanco, Samuel Tomas and Santiago Lopez won CMAS World Cup for Nations with 29120 points. Spain had 24 fish (3 cups), the biggest was a grey mullet of 1585 grams, then 15 white seabreams, three salemas, two green wrasses, a brown wrasse, a brown meagre and a seabass. Second place was won by Greece with Tasis Peroulis, Lambros Dertilis and Elias Sakavitsis. Greece got 15 fish and 18055 points. Third finished San Marino,with Domenico Macaluso, Ricardo Carmelo and Davide Bruni with 8 fish and 9995 points. San Marino caught the biggest fish of World Cup for Nations, a dentex of 1605 grams.
“We didn’t know the zone and we didn’t prepare the competition in advance. So, without any spots we decided to go in shallow water. We struggled a lot because there were few fish, but in the end we did well”, said Santiago Lopez after competition.
Equipment used by the Spanish Team:
Santiago Lopez: mask Big Eyes, wetsuit Cressi Team 7 mm, speargun Comanche 80, fins Cressi Gara Modular Carbon
Xavi Blanco: mask Mares Set Tana, wetsuit Mares Squadra Tec 70 7mm, speargun Mares Viper Pro 90, fins Mares Razor Carbon
Samuel Tomas: mask Pathos Micro Mask, wetsuit Pathos Team 8mm + 5mm, speargun Pathos Laser Carbon 82, fins Pathos Carbon Abyss
First World Cup for brands
Cressi Team, with Daniel Gospic, Jose Luis Fernandes and Oscar Hidalgo won first World Cup for brands.
Cressi Team won convincingly with 34 fish (5 cups) and 53540 points. On weighing the biggest catch was a dusky grouper of 2375 grams. Apart from the grouper, they caught a moray, a sharpsnout seabream, two red scorpionfish, two brown wrasses, a green wrasse, three brown meagre, a silver seabream, nine grey mullets and 15 white seabreams.
Pathos Team with Giacomo de Mola, Oscar Lopez Martin and Kostas Makris finished second. They were also second last year as CMAS Team on World Cup for Nations 2016. They catch enough fishes for 31500 points.
French team Imersion Mares JFE won third place with 27295 points. In the team were Eugene Guillom, Aurelien Bouzon and Stephan Foppolo and they cautch the biggest fish between brand teams, a dusky grouper 2565 grams heavy.
For the first time at the Semana Master the athletes of Team Salvimar, Massimo Quattrone, Jose Tulsa, Manuel Garcia e Tomeu Marti, finally in seventh position.
“We did as we agreed. First we moved on shallow water to catch some grey mullets and after spot by spot from two to 20 meters. Visibility was more, less good. Hidalgo catch grouper. From the beginning until the end we cautch fish, we didn’t stop for a moment”, said Daniel Gospic.
Equipment used by Team Cressi
Daniel Gospic: mask Cressi F1 Frameless, wetsuit Cressi Team 5mm, speargun Cressi Comanche 65 and 75, fins Cressi Gara Modular Carbon
Jose Luis Fernandes: mask Big Eyes, wetsuit Cressi Team 7mm jacket e and 5mm trousers, speargun Cressi Comanche 65 and 75, fins Cressi Gara Modular Carbon
Oscar Hidalgo: mask Superocchio, wetsuit Cressi team 7mm+5mm, speargun Geronimo 90, finns Cressi Gara Modular Carbon
XVII Open City of Palma – VI Memorial Sebastia Carbonell
Team Licoretas, Samuel Tomas, Raul Astorga and Oscar Cervantes were the best of the XVII Open City of Palma – VI Memorial Sebastia Carbonell among 43 teams. Spanish trio in six hours caught 14 fish (4 cups) and the heaviest was a dusky grouper of 3065 grams. They also caught two congers, one moray, one dentex, a grey mullet, three red scorpionfish, three brown meagre and five white seabreams. All that brought them 36415 points.
Second team was Beuchat Spain with Avelino Sans, Joan Marques and Oliver Guerra with 27710 points (1 cup). Beuchat Spain caught the biggest catch of the Open, a white grouper of 10915 grams. Apart from that, they caught a dusky grouper, two red scorpionfish, a white seabream, three brown meagre and three forkbeards.
After second place last year, Pathos International with Giacomo de Mola, Oscar Lopez Martin and Kostas Makris won third place with 24185 points (1 cup). On the weighing they had one conger, a dusky grouper of 5605 grams, a dentex of 3850 grams, three red scorpionfish, three forkbeards and three white seabreams.
“In the beginning we started close to the shore, but the visibility was very bad. We could only see a few meters away. After one hour we had only one fish, a grey mullet and so decided to move to another spot, but again we didn’t see much. Then we went out, away from the shore, looking for deeper spots. The water was very clean, about 20 meters visibility, and on three or four spots we caught all of our fish. Maximum depth was 38-40 meters and we tried to catch more different kinds of fish so we could gain more points thanks to that and due to four cups”, said Raul Astorga,member of the winner team Licoretas.
Equipment used by Team Licoretas:
Samuel Tomas: mask Pathos Micro Mask, wetsuit Pathos team 8mm + 5mm, speargun Pathos Laser Carbon 82, finns Pathos Carbon Abyss
Raul Astorga: mask Omer Alien, wetsuit Sporasub J55 6.5 mm, speargun Omer Cayman Carbon 90, finns Omer Umberto Pelizzari F1
Oscar Cervantes: mask Beuchat Maxlux, wetsuit Beuchat Marlin Elite 7mm+5mm, speargun Beuchat Marlin Carbon 85, Beuchat Mundial Carbone
XVI Master
Master is the competition where you can participate if you are an ex world champ, ex winner of Master, between first ten of the last World championship, or if you got an invitationfrom the organisation. This year as Federacion Balear established the new Cup for brands, one member of each brand team got an invitation. A special invitation was also sent to one Japanese spearo, Seiei Shimoji, who came for the first time in Palma de Mallorca. Shimoji, 64 years old professional fisherman from Okinawa is very popular in documentaries in Japan. Over there spearfishing as sport does not exist, and you can catch fish with speargun only if you are professional fisherman. Shimoji came with a big TV-crew, two underwater cameras and one above. He wasn’t prepared for the conditions in Palma, in fact he had a scuba wetsuit with removable cap. In the end he caught some fish, but they were not valid. Even so, Shimoji was very happy with new experience.
The best between 16 competitors participating to the Master was Oscar Cervantes, who obtained another first place after the one in the Open. Cervantes caught 16 fish (3 cups): two congers, one moray, a red scorpionfish, a grey mullet, a brown meagre, a black seabream, five white seabreams, a green wrasse and three St.Peter’s fish, the heaviest of which was 2425 grams. This is the second time that Cervantes becomes „Maestro“.
I did not have time for preparations, so I went to the spots that I knew from last years. In short time I caught six fish of different species. Then I went to deeper spots, which went down to – 40 meters, where I caught congers, white seabrams and St. Peter’s fish. The best spot I have in that zone is the one with St. Peter’s fish, which are fantastic”, said Oscar Cervantes.
Three times Master winner Croatian champ Daniel Gospic finished second with 14 fish (1 cup) and 17845 points. The heaviest prey was a dusky grouper of 2270 grams, then he caught a moray, two red scorpionfish, a green wrasse, three brown wrasses, five white seabreams and a salema.
Cesar Bustelo from Beuchat 2 conquered third place with 14575 points. Bustelo caught three salemas, a green wrasse, two brown wrasses, two white seabreams, two brown meagres, one grey mullet and a seabass of 1395 grams.
The biggest catch of Master, a smooth grouper of 5095 grams, was caught by Italian spearo from Pathos, Giacomo de Mola, who was finally eights.
Oscar Cervantes equipment: mask Beuchat Maxlux, wetsuit Beuchat Marlin Elite 7mm+5mm, speargun Beuchat Marlin Carbon 85, fins Beuchat Mundial Carbone
All preys caught at the Semana Master were given for charity to the SOS Mamas, who utilized it to feed the poor.
Text and photos by Valentina Prokic