Living legend of recreational sailing, celebrates its 91 anniversary, which makes it currently one of the oldest sailing yachts in Spain, returns to participate in the Panerai regatta of Mahon, where it sailed its seas at the beginning of the passed century and on July 18, 1936, while in Menorca, he was surprised by the outbreak of the Civil War, attempting to leave the port of Mahon for Mallorca was intercepted by a Republican submarine and forced to return to port, where he remained moored during the whole contest.
BON-TEMPS 1926
``one of the oldest sailing boats in Spain ...``



Released on March 17, 1926
built by the maestro d'Aixa Pere Nicolau Mandilego in Palma de Mallorca

The Bon Temps is a wooden ketch with two sticks and sail, with 13 meters in length of hull, sleeve 3.58, draft 1.78 and weighs 13 tons. The main pole measures 14.5 meters, the sail surface reaches 115 square meters with 6 candles, greater flute, scandalous, mesana, ratchet, jib and genoa. The ship was launched in Palma de Mallorca on March 17, 1926, being built by the master d’aixa Pere Nicolau Mandilego, belonging to a saga of shore-side carpenters composed by his brothers Maties and Bartomeu and their respective children, Antonio Nicolau Reynés and Matias Nicolau Riera. It was inscribed with the number 703 of Palma de Mallorca, in list 4. Its cost was of 20,000 pesetas (10.000 of the motor and others of the wood), in its beginnings mounted a motor San Martin of 15 HP, one of its old engines the Kelvin 44 ‘of 1940, is exhibited in the hall of the maritime museum of Santander. The sloop was commissioned by the Catalan industrialist member of a family of the burgesía of Barcelona Ponsa Hermanos S.A. with textile factories of natural silk in the Poblenou of Barcelona and in Palma de Mallorca, José Ponsa Soca and later it would happen to his brother Jaume, great-grandfather of its current shipowner, being precursor of the navigation of recreation by the islands. There are many anecdotes and events that have supported his ribs with 90 years of service. Among the most curious of them, as from 1939 to 1945 the engine was sealed because of the rationing period, having during all that period as the only mode of propulsion its cottony candles.
In 2016 it was donated to the great-grandson of the family who put it 90 years earlier
``One day he had to return home with his family, it is like returning an adopted son with his family, after giving all our love for so many years ...`` were his words


After many years of uninterrupted exploration, Fundación Villas del Cantábrico restored it in 2004 and its slender silhouette sailed as a school vessel for Cantabrian waters, participated in the 2002 Cutty Sark and the first two editions of the festival of the sea of Santander, in the more than 3,000 people embarked, in 2016 coinciding with its 90th anniversary, was donated to the great-grandson of the family who launched it in 1926, to carry out a deep restoration that allows to return it to its most faithful and original state possible to celebrate its centennial circumnavigating Spain, with these beautiful words “one day I had to go home and with his family, it is like returning an adopted child with his family, after giving all our love for so many years,” so that a new start in waters of the Mediterranean.
El Bon Temps en esta nueva etapa tendrá como finalidad, participar en encuentros y regatas de clásicos, servir de buque escuela de jovenes y personas en riesgo de exclusión, algunos de ellos ya participan como voluntarios trabajando en su restauración y realizar charters de vela clásica, para costear su mantenimiento.
En su primera singladura, su antiguo patrón Miguel Godó Ponsa padre del actual armador ha podido realizar a sus 85 años el sueño de toda su vida, volver a navegar en él, gobernando su timón, en aguas del mediterráneo, como lo hacía en aguas de Mallorca a sus 14 años o mientras recalaban amarrando el Bon Temps de popa en una roca en la caleta de Santa Ponsa, recuerda como dormía en una hamaca colgada de la botavara de la mayor, utilizaban cantos rodados como lastre en lugar de plomo ya que en aquellos tiempos no era fácil proveerse, por ello llevaban a bordo jaulas con gallinas para poder desayunar huevos frescos, cocinaban en cubierta en un hornillo de carbón de leña de encina los peces que pescaban en sus cristalinas aguas, repletas de nacras, recuerda que organizaron en la bahía de la isla de Cabrera un triángulo con 3 boyas para poder hacer la primera competición de esquí náutico de la isla, con el dingui propulsado por un motor Guiot que le regaló su padre.
A dream come true
Stop, el Bon Temps makes it home!
