Payaso, the Spanish word for ‘clown’ is the word that most comes to mind every time we write about Spanish Sailing Federation President (RFEV) Gerardo Pumbo. Yesterday, he hit the clown news again, claiming that his vote at the ISAF trials a week ago ousting Windsurfing in favor of Kiteboards (the vote was 19-17 in favor of the kites) was a mistake, and that he really meant to vote for the windsurfer. Hanging chads, anyone?
This is the same guy who founded the infamous (and imaginary) puppet club CNEV, that was shattered by the NY courts as a sham club, showering shame on everyone involved. He’s the same guy that sued blogger Jaume Soler for breaking the story on the CNEV “annual regatta” in Optis – costing Soler hundreds of thousands in legal fees and destroying his life for more than two years. And he’s the same guy that cost the Spanish hundreds of thousands when a court found his lawsuit against Soler was nothing but intimidation and bullshit.
You’d think a proud nation like Spain would have long-ago tossed a clown like Pumbo out on his ass for making all of Spanish sailing look ridiculous, and with such a strong sailing tradition, and so much going on over the past decade, we wonder what the real story is behind Pumbo’s continuing presidency of the organization.
Check in on the thread here. The kite vs. board battle ain’t going away just yet!
