Birzebbuga Sailing Club's annual regatta

The usual fleets of Lasers and Optimists this year 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 undoubtedly the fruits of the Adult Beginners Sailing Courses being held regularly at BSC.

The Regatta was held to coincide with the weekend of festivities of St. Peter, patron saint of Birzebbuga. Race officer David Dalli laid an Olympic Trapezoid courses within St. George's Bay. This created a veritable spectacle as the backdrop to the races was the village decked out in all it's 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 this years club's novices on Optimists 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 over all 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. During the Reception he thanked George Bonnici and his team of tutors for fielding the Miracles and also thanked all sailors, parents, coaches, helpers, committee members and the sponsor for making the event so possible and enjoyable and with the result of such an outstanding success.

Results are as follows:
Optimist open: 1st Alex Esposito, 2nd Zack Zammit, 3rd Jacob Saliba
Optimist juniors: 1st Robert Muscat, 2nd Katryna Esposito 3rd Francesca Zammit
Llaser 4.7: 1st Daniel dalli, 2nd Rroberto Briffa 3rd Pierre Bonello
Lasers radial: 1st Alfred Fenech 2nd Andew Farrugia 3rd Stephen Dalli
Handicap: 1st Par Sahlberg 2nd Neil Borg 3rd Alfred Fenech
Miracl 1st Jean Paul Farrugia u Luke Camenzuli 2nd Pierre u Michela Mifsud, 3rd Matthew Dalli u Andrew Mifsud
Optimist non ioda: 1st Benjamin Ciantar 2nd Matthew Bugeja 3rd Jean Paul Ellul