The Birżebbuġa Sailing Club’s annual regatta this year was contested by 40 boats split into seven different classes.
The usual fleets of Lasers and Optimists were strengthened by the presence of an exceptional number of Miracles. This welcome return of a Miracle class was made up of eight crafts all crewed by two sailors. Such a number of this once very popular class has not been seen for the last decade or more. This is the fruits of the Adult Beginners Sailing Courses being held regularly at BSC.
The Regatta was held to coincide with the weekend of locality festivities of St Peter.
Race officer David Dalli laid an Olympic Trapezoid course within St George’s Bay. This created a veritable spectacle as the backdrop to the races was the village decked out in all its festive regalia.
On Saturday the northwesterly force five winds that swept out of St George’s bay provided the tacticians with a dream setting due to the shifting winds and flat waters and multitude of boats racing in close quarters overlapping and crisscrossing constantly and meeting up repeatedly at the marker buoys.
This form of tussle on the waters and around the buoys happened in all classes. It created a spectacle of competitive dinghy sailing of high standard. The lighter winds on Sunday allowed some of the Optimist novices to join in the fun under the watchful eye of their coaches.
A total of six races were held and as so often happens in sailing, some of the placings were not settled until the very last lap of the last race.
In the overall laser handicap class, sailors waited with bated breath as the race officials Joe Briffa, Inge Mule Stagno, Josette Micallef and Carmen Briffa assisted by Neil Borg worked out the corrected times before winners could be announced.
BSC trophies and RLR Yachting gift vouchers were presented to the winners by Club Commodore David Dalli.
Results
Optimist open: 1. A. Esposito; 2. Z. Zammit; 3. J. Saliba.
Optimist juniors: 1. R. Muscat, 2. K. Esposito, 3. F. Zammit.
Laser 4.7: 1. D. Dalli; 2. Briffa; 3. P. Bonello.
Lasers radial: 1. A. Fenech; 2. A. Farrugia; 3. S. Dalli.
Handicap: 1. P. Sahlberg; 2. N. Borg; 3. A. Fenech.
Miracle: 1. J.P. Farrugia/L. Camenzuli; 2. P. Mifsud/M. Mifsud; 3. M. Dalli/A. Mifsud.
Optimist non ioda: 1. B. Ciantar; 2. M. Bugeja; 3. J.P. Ellul.