King Marine's story, on one of the airwaves closest to sailors' hearts: Españoles en la Mar
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This week, King Marine was featured on Españoles en la Mar, the Radio Nacional de España programme that accompanies thousands of sailors and sailing enthusiasts week after week with its "ronda marinera" round-up. Being part of a programme so close to the hearts of those who live the sea from the Iberian Peninsula is a recognition the whole team is proud to receive, and we'd like to thank RNE for the feature.
Listen to the Españoles en la Mar interview here:
The report, by journalist Antonio Fernández, took listeners inside the shipyard's facilities in Alginet, some 30 kilometres from Valencia, where part of the fleet competing in this year's 52 SUPER SERIES final is built. It traced King Marine's history back to 2005, when the yard was founded to build the boats for Spain's Desafío Español challenge in the 2007 America's Cup. Two decades on, King Marine has become an international reference in carbon-fibre racing yacht construction. As CEO Pablo Santarsiero explained, there is no production line — each boat is built essentially as a prototype, tailored to each team's design, needs and strategy. Traditional craftsmanship still sits at the heart of the process, but now works alongside CNC milling, 3D scanning and 3D printing, technologies that have significantly improved both productivity and build quality over the years.
The programme also covered the shipyard's expansion toward the sea: in 2019, King Marine acquired one of the former America's Cup bases at the Marina de Valencia — previously occupied by Team New Zealand — allowing it to add post-construction services such as upgrades and repairs to its design and build work. In the TP52 class, yachts of just over 15 metres built for top-level racing, King Marine has built more than fifteen boats over its history, several of them champions.
The report closed by looking ahead to the season's biggest date: Valencia will host the final round of the 2026 52 SUPER SERIES from 5 to 10 October, deciding the circuit's overall champion. Santarsiero noted that meeting delivery deadlines is as critical as design itself in racing yacht construction, since the date of the first race is fixed while designers need every available day to refine the boat. Combining the highest build quality with very tight timeframes, he said, is itself part of what makes a boat competitive. The report also highlighted Valencia's appeal as a base — its connectivity to the rest of Europe, its hotel and leisure offer, and wind and sea conditions that make it a prime location for teams to train and compete.
King Marine extends its thanks once again to Radio Nacional de España for bringing the work being done every day in Alginet and at the Marina de Valencia to a wider audience.
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