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Record Line-Up For Optimist Class
The Russian contingent made up of eighteen sailors, under the guidance of two coaches, Sergey Semanov from the Rautu Sailing Team of St. Petersburg and Ekaterina Maximova from the SC Paruskin also of St. Petersburg, were the first to arrive to participate in the 11th Edition of the Euromed Malta Championship.
By Wilfred Sultana
In fact they left behind them a day temperature of -3ºC in St. Petersburgto find a reasonably pleasant 16ºC in Malta. The Russian youngsters were on the water on Monday morning, in less than 24-hours from their arrival, joining the Maltese sailors in their last training sessions before the big event.
This year’s Championship, the 11th Edition in the series, will see 98 optimist sailors, of which 27 are Maltese, in the racing fleet, which are the best entries, overall and also as locals, for the Euromed since the very beginning. Besides the 18 Russians and 27 Maltese, Sicily provides the biggest optimists’ contingent this year with 44 sailors, Israel 7 and the United Kingdom with 4.
Eligible to participate in the Optimist Class, the largest junior class in the World are ‘sailors’ under the age of 16 years.
As in previous years besides the Optimist Class, competitive racing will also be held for the Laser 4.7, the Laser Radial as well as the Laser Standard. In the Optimist class the fleet will be divided into the Junior Cadet Class and the Open Class. The Lasers Class Regatta, to be contested by 25 participants, is reserved for over-16-year-old competitors, and will be made up of Russian, Italian, English and Maltese sailors.
The racing contingents will assemble at the Hotel Riu Seabank in Mellieha, the Championship’s official hotel, on coming Friday for the registration formalities with the first two of the 9-race prgramme scheduled for Saturday. The remaining seven races are planned for Sunday (3), Monday (3) with the final race listed for Tuesday 21st December morning.
As announced Mellieha Bay presents the racing arena for this young sailors’ international tournament while the hotel’s beach facilities will present the necessary services for sailors and race officials alike throughout the 4-day event.
It is an undisputed reality that the Euromed Championship is being instrumental to give our young sailors a mixture of sailing knowledge and skills as well as many enjoyable memories to take with them for life. Definitely Nicola Manduca and Matthew Westwood will remember this year’s edition for it will be their last in their optimist carrier, since they have reached the age limit a sailor can sail an optimist.
Yet, the Euromed not only gives our youngsters maybe their first taste of international racing, but imbues in them a passion for racing as can be seem from some young sailors who now crew on racers that challenge the daring 606 nautical mile Rolex Middle Sea Race.
Names like Jan Rossi and Peter Valentino Jr. who this year were part of the Artie crew as well as Sebastian Ripard, Tom Ripard, Luke Scicluna, James Staniland, Daniel and Mark Calascione who formed part of the Jaru crew. Even Thomas Zammit Tabona made his ‘maiden’ RMSR this year when he crewed on Elusive. Other ex-optimist sailors who are also setting high sailing ambitions are Benji Borg who with Sebastian Ripard is endeavouringto contest the 49er Class and go for Gold at the 2012 Olympics. This passionate aspiration is also embraced by Maya Podesta who targets the same 2012 Olympics but for the Laser Radial class.
All mentioned adventurous youngsters are ex-optimist sailors from the Malta Young Sailors Club of St. Pauls Bay who participated in Euromed from the first year.
On the eve of another Euromed one finds that Maltese sailors have won four of the passed ten editions, with the Swedish winning two titles and one victory each going to an Irish, a Turk, an Italian and a Russian. Malta’s Thomas Zammit Tabona is the only sailor to win the Euromed twice, in 2006 and 2007, while eleven-year-old Russian Nikita Ushkov was the youngest of all past ten winners.
An International Jury comprised of Babette Delhart from France, Tullio Giraldi from Italy, Trevor Lewis from GBR, Jovin Rausi and Godwin Zammit from Malta under the chairmanship of Peter Valentino and assisted by the Malta Sailing President Anna Rossi will run the technical and logistic aspect of the Championship. Peter Dimech will be the event’s Principle Race Officer.
The now established Euromed Malta Championship, is organised by the Malta Young Sailors Club in partnership with KMS (Kunsill Malti Ghall-Isport) and the Mellieha Local Council. The Championship is held under the auspices of the Malta Sailing Federation.
