• Monarchy The 'Fortuna' already has a future: it will be a rental yacht for the richest

  • Business El Fortuna, the worst investment of Balearic businessmen

Nobody knows what to do with the Fortuna, the yacht that King Juan Carlos resigned in 2013. Fundatur, the foundation created by the Balearic tourism entrepreneurs, who had given it to the Monarch "for his continuous tests of appreciation for Mallorca and its Inhabitants ", then claimed the yacht that had cost

20 million euros to National Heritage

and sold it to use the money for social purposes.

It was bought by the Balearia shipping company, interested in the ship's very powerful Rolls Royce engines.

The maintenance of the Fortuna throughout the 13 years of use and enjoyment of the Royal Family cost National Heritage 25 million of public money to put it into development.

Filling their deposits was not less than 25,000 euros.

The yacht, so expensive and out of date technology,

was tried to sell again for eight million euros

but was reduced to 2.2.

Given the lack of a buyer, he has withdrawn and today his fate is unknown.

The Fortuna made history when in 2007, the photographer Antonio Catalán Deus and his partner Sergio, managed to

capture Letizia in a bikini in the waters of Cabrera

, some photos for which they paid 300,000 euros.

It was the royal ship that gave the most to talk about, but not the first Don Juan Carlos Fortuna, which was a small competition sailboat, a wedding gift from Doña Sofía, with which the then Prince of Spain competed in the 1972 Olympic Games. Years later, friends of the king spent 60,000 euros to restore it, they gave it to him and he gave it to the Olympic Museum of Barcelona.

Doña Sofía walking with her son along the dock towards the 'Fortuna'EFE

When the next Fortuna premiered in 1976, Don Juan Carlos was already the head of state.

It was 20 meters long and its guests went from the kings of Belgium to the Prime Minister, Adolfo Suárez.

Some visitors who gave prominence to the Balearic Islands and their tourism.

The king became the best ambassador of the

Mallorcan

summers

.

Three years later,

Don Juan Carlos sold the yacht to the Marquis de Mondéjar

, first Head of the Royal Household, upon receiving as a gift from his friend King Fahd of Arabia, a new 30-meter-long super Fortuna capable of sailing at 40 knots.

A few months later, the king made some major improvements to it.

The Fortuna began to become ships of institutional representation, where the Royal Family received foreign dignitaries such as Hussein of Jordan, Barons Thyssen or Bill Clinton,

an invitation to which President José María Aznar added

.

Diana of Wales on deck was a gift to the papparazzi.

On a voyage with Prince Charles in the late 1980s, the royal crewmen were towed away.

The news made the headlines of the British press and the king began to consider getting rid of a yacht that broke down often.

A year later, an Italian magazine

published a photo of Don Juan Carlos completely naked,

jumping into the water.

The Royal House assured that the king's doctor had advised him to sunbathe without clothes, due to a skin condition.

DISCRETION

It was not the only informational shock they had to deal with in Zarzuela. In the year 2000, the possible friendship of the monarch with Antonia Dell`Atte, already separated from Alessandro Lequio, don Juan Carlos's second cousin, was widely discussed. His mother, Sandra Torlonia, was the granddaughter of Alfonso XIII, just like Don Juan Carlos.

The Italian model had settled in the Mallorcan summer, where she frequented the king's biographer, José de Luis de Vilallonga and his group. To silence rumors, the Casa staff could not think of anything else than to

invite the Italian woman and her son Clemente Lequio to Fortuna,

as a normal visit between relatives. On deck were Doña Sofía, Infanta Elena and Simoneta Gómez Acebo and the boarding of the former Countess Lequio was a manifesto of transparency, for others, an absurdity. Well visible, Antonia climbed to the top of the yacht, with the golden letters of Fortuna and the flag of Spain behind, recalls Gustavo González, one of the authors of the photos.

That scene that made the covers of magazines and newspapers was an affront to Ana Obregón and her son Aless Lequio, with the same Bourbon ascendants as Antonia's son.

Obregón and his son were never received by the Royal Family,

today they surely regret it.

That publicized scene contrasted with other visits to Fortuna, more discreet and whose photos were never published.

And it is that the photographers who followed the summer activities of Don Juan Carlos have taken years to realize that the blonde who went up to Fortuna from the military compound of Porto Pi, was Corinna Larsen, the woman who had a king abdicated.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Juan Carlos I

  • Jose Maria Aznar

  • Real home

  • Spain

  • Ana Obregon

  • Balearics

  • Majorca

  • Belgium

  • Adolfo Suarez

  • LOC

Casa RealPuig de la Bellacasa, the loyalist who opposed the morality of the 'biutiful people sociata'

Royal House Felipe of Edinburgh, a key support for Don Juan Carlos when he needed it

Climate changeThe rise in sea level will push back the beaches of the Balearic Islands by 50 meters

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