A moment for the best young talent to excel

Malta's sailing splendour gracefully unfolds as the season evolves. Some weeks back we had the Rolex Middle Sea Race, now we have the HSBC National Dinghy Championships and, in a few weeks' time, Malta hosts the ninth Optimist Class Euromed Championship.

Sailing galore throughout!

The Dinghy Championships are being held this coming weekend and this year it will be the turn of Birżebbuġa Bay to host an eight-race programme to be contested by sailors racing in seven different classes.

The classes will be the Optimist Junior Class, the Optimist Cadet Class, the Optimist Novice Class, the Laser 4.7, Laser Radial, the Laser Standard and the Mirror Dinghies. Although there is no age limit for participation in these championships, they are mainly contested by young sailing enthusiasts.

The championships are organised by the Malta Sailing Federation which is made up of nine sailing clubs and associations, namely the Beneteau Sailing Association, the Birżebbuġa Sailing Club, the Gozo Sailing Club, the Malta Laser Class Association, the Malta Model Boating Association, the Malta Optimist Dinghy Association, the Malta Young Sailors Club, the Royal Malta Yacht Club and the Vikings Sailing Club.

The racing venue of the championships rotates between the different federation members.

HSBC are sponsors of the championships for the third consecutive year. The race officer of the event will be Peter Dimech. Anna Rossi, will be running the race office while Peter Valentino will be heading the jury, together with Jovin Rausi and Godwin Zammit.

The championships know their origin in the early 1970s.

The highest honour of the event is to establish the winner with Thomas Zammit Tabona being the defending champion.

Two other major honours are the Joe Borg Costanzi Trophy, which is presented to the winner of the largest Laser Class, and a trophy for the club with the largest number of participating sailors.

Malta Young Sailors Club have always claimed this trophy except for one year when the Vikings Sailing Club won it with one sailor more on the list.

On Saturday, the first race on the programme starts at noon while the first race on Sunday is scheduled to set off at 11 a.m.

A maximum of six races in each class are planned and, weather permitting, up to four races a day may be sailed.