Race crews report cetacean sightings

The crew of the sailing boat Allegra won the 2004 BICREF Award for crews producing detailed information and the best set of photographs of whales or dolphins encountered during the Rolex Middle Sea Race.

Three other boat crews were runners-up - Primadonna, Strait Dealer and Soundsphere.

The Biological Conservation Research Foundation, the BICREF Project, gives the opportunity to crews to contribute to the Cetacean Sighting and Reporting Project.

The project, which is a BICREF and Middle Sea Race initiative, was launched in 2000.

It makes available information packs and sighting forms prepared by BICREF members forwarded to all sailing boats together with pocket cameras.

BICREF said this year was special due to the greater number of sightings of dolphins and whales along the route of the race.

This was mostly due to the fine weather the yachts found for the first few days of the race.

For further details contact BICREF at PO Box 30, Hamrun.