History of de club

History
Chronology

1920: First signs of the foundation of the club.

1957: Official inauguration of the Club Nàutic Vilanova.

1960: The club reaches 150 members and 31 registered boats.

1989: The club moves to its current premises.

2015: More than 850 moorings and more than a thousand members make it the second most important marina club in Catalonia.

Vilanova i la Geltrú owes a very important part of its identity to the sea. In this sense, it is difficult to define the character of its inhabitants, the peculiarities of their customs, their festivities, their dreams, besides their Mediterranean vocation. There are different reasons to explain these facts but they cannot be separated from the town economic and commercial activity throughout the history.

The Club Nàutic Vilanova is the result of a long romance with the beach that dates back to the 1920s. The first sports boats that sailed the coast of the town were rowing canoes and little catamarans, all of them built by a small group of amateurs with more enthusiasm than material or economic means.

These people, led by Josep Solà Morell, began in 1940, after the Civil War, what had been a long desire: to have a suitable place to berth their boats, and some premises where they could share leisure and experiences. Thus, in 1942, some damp premises on the beach were used to found, under the shelter of the institution called la Obra Sindical, what would end up being the Nautical Section of an state institution: Educación y Descanso.

With no official help and with only the financial contributions of its members (2 pesetas per month), the nautical section survived only on voluntarism during the fifteen years that elapsed until the completion of the works begun in 1949.
The first location of the current Club Nàutic Vilanova was a wooden booth donated by the shipping company Argimbau on the western dock of the port. The official inauguration of the Club Nàutic Vilanova took place in 1957 (as the photographs donated by Jordi Mas and currently exhibited at the Social Hall of the Club show) in that beloved booth, which survived many different gales until the premises were definitively moved. The founders of the Club Nàutic Vilanova were 50 people with ties to the previous nautical section, including their first president, Josep Solà i Morell and his successor in the post, José María Hernández “el capi”. At the time, the club had sixteen 4.5-meter-long boats of the Snipe class made of wood and sailcloth.
In June 1960, according to the archives, there were 150 members and 31 registered boats. A few months later, the institution Grupo de Puertos authorized the temporary move of the club to the south east corner of the fishing dock, and after some time, the first piers donated by the Club Nàutic Barcelona reached Vilanova towed by a fishing boat. The definitive move to the current location, a project started in 1973, was not a reality until 1989, and nowadays, with more than 850 moorings and 700 members, the Club Nàutic Vilanova is the second most important marina club in Catalonia.

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Galeria de fotografies històriques del CNV

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