Theresa Zabell is one of the great Spanish sportswomen, with an unequalled national and international record in dinghy sailing competition. Bi-Olympic champion in the 470 class (Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996), world champion on five occasions and European champion on three others and the only woman in Spain with two Olympic gold medals. She has also been Spanish champion in the same class on multiple occasions.
In 1998 she received the distinction of World Sailor of the Year, awarded by the International Sailing Federation. She has also been a member of the European Parliament and the first woman vice-president of the Spanish Olympic Committee.
In 1999, together with a small group of nature defenders, she created the ECOMAR Foundation, which for 23 years has been carrying out multiple and important activities aimed at caring for our seas and oceans.
Below, we ask Theresa Zabell, President of ECOMAR, to tell us a little more about its trajectory, how it came about and the activities of this foundation, through this interview.
Interview with Theresa Zabell, President of ECOMAR
¿Theresa, how did your passion for the sea come about, what do you remember most fondly from your time as a dinghy sailor?
My life, since I was born is linked to the sea, not in vain my family emigrated from England to the Canary Islands on a boat when I was only three months old. Later we moved to Fuengirola in Malaga and that’s where I took my first tacks as a sailor.
Naturally I started in the Optimist class because I did not lift a meter off the ground, but hard work and tenacity led me to get my first World Championship in the Europe class, and from there, to fight for my dream: to participate in the Olympic Games.
The sea also has difficult situations, what is the most complicated moment you have encountered on the water? What is the hardest or most difficult thing for a sailor?
Every regatta is different and every situation on the water has to be faced in the most appropriate way for the moment. As difficult moments I can say all the cold I have spent in the long hours of training throughout my career, but also bad sporting moments like the time I qualified for the Games in Seoul 88 and a federative decision left me out.
In the 1992 Games, in Barcelona, we were unfairly disqualified for an off line that was not ours, in the first heat. It is true that we recovered and won the gold, but it was very difficult to fix the judges’ mistake. In Atlanta we had a very bad time when a day of bad weather, with a big squall enveloping the fleet, made us capsize and we almost drowned because we could not see anything and no one could assist us until the rain stopped.
Theresa, in order for our readers to get to know ECOMAR better, how did this foundation come about, what are its main objectives?
During my career as a sailor I have sailed on many seas, oceans, lakes and rivers and always, from a very young age, I noticed that wherever I sailed I was becoming a garbage dump. My achievements in those seas led me to think that I had to give back to the sea everything it was giving me, and so it was, as soon as I retired I got down to work and founded ECOMAR, a humble foundation that began to fight to educate and raise awareness among children about the importance of our seas on planet earth.
We want the next generations to be aware that we must pamper the source of life that is the sea. Our motto is: “take care of the two places you can never move from, your body and your planet”. Education is our raison d’être.
ECOMAR carries out a large number of activities through initiatives, projects or campaigns, which ones would you highlight?¿Cuáles destacarías?
Our training ship is the Grímpola Ecomar, which is a program aimed at clubs to teach students of sailing, surfing, canoeing, etc… The Grímpola is supported by the Logbook, which is a publication aimed at children from 7 to 14 years old where we teach them, as a comic book, how the land and the seas are. We also include workshops for them to do with the monitors.
We are working on a new project, of which we have already launched the pilot program, to try to advance our education and awareness in schools in Spain and Portugal. We are trying to do everything with the collaboration of private companies, because we do not consider ourselves to be an NGO.
The pollution generated by human activity produces a great deterioration in the seas and oceans, what are we doing wrong, can we reverse this situation?
Our planet is badly wounded. Of course the fault is ours, we have never had the culture that we are trying to implement now and we have filled the earth and the seas with waste dumps of all kinds. Not everything can be fixed by going to clean beaches and seabeds, but the most important thing is to start at the beginning and allocate many resources to education and knowledge of our planet.
Working with children is fundamental to reverse this situation. Foundations like ECOMAR need help from people who want to be directly involved and who really believe in it, that is why we make it possible to be Ecomar partners, who with very little money will give us a big push. Everything, absolutely everything, is audited and transparent.
We have seen that you have recently created a seabed cleaning division, can you tell us what it consists of and who can perform it?
Diving in the Canary Islands and Balearic Islands I could see firsthand that our seabed is half dead. Everything is littered with plastics, cans, tires, cigarette butts, toothpicks and everything you can think of.
We are starting with this diving division and those of us who work in the Ecomar Foundation are already doing courses to be able to organize dives with volunteers and diving enthusiasts to try to clean up, at least, the natural park areas along the Spanish coast. Naturally you must have the necessary permits to go down and never dive alone.
Many of our readers are owners, skippers, sailors or navigators on coastal or ocean cruising sailboats, how do you think they can help take care of the oceans aboard a sailboat?
I am sure that they know as well as I do what to do, but of course, do not throw anything into the sea; collect what you can; try to sail as long as possible and, above all, raise awareness among the people around you.
“Awareness is critical”
Finally, Theresa, looking to the future, what do you consider to be the main tasks or challenges facing ECOMAR in the coming years?
Ufff, ECOMAR is a very young foundation. We are pioneers in working with children, but we are only 23 years old and we have neither roof nor bottom. Our prow always looks towards a horizon of a sustainable planet and seas rich in flora and fauna. Always instilling in the children that what is thrown on the ground, is thrown into the sea.
“There is a lot of work to do and we at ECOMAR are looking forward to it”
You can find more information about the ECOMAR Foundation and its activities on its website at the following link:
And you can also follow her on her facebook page:
From “Bluewater Sailors” we congratulate the ECOMAR Foundation for the excellent work it does, and thank Theresa Zabell, its president, and exceptional sailor admired by all, for her contribution with this interview.
We take this opportunity to encourage sailors to support this foundation, and the care of the oceans.
