International fleet of young sailors challenge for Malta award

By Wilfred Sultana

Now in its thirteen outing, the EUROMED Malta Championship 2012 is again expected to draw a fleet of over 120 sailors to our shores for its four-day daring challenge.

From Wednesday 19th up to Sunday 22nd December Mellieha Bay will present the racing arena for competitors who this year hail from Russia, Great Britain, Israel, Denmark, Sicily, Algeria and Slovakia to be joined by a healthy contingent of 30 local sailors. Algeria and Slovakia are newcomers to the Malta event. Euromed gives local young sailors an opportunity to participate in an international event against other foreign sailors on home waters thus without the need to travel overseas.

The Malta Euromed Championship is organised by the Malta Young Sailors Club with the cooperation of the Kunsill Malti għall-iSport and the Mellieħa Local Council and held under the patronage of the Malta Sailing Federation. The Seabank Resort & Spa is the official Hotel of Euromed 2012 while the Race Office is being set-up at the Mexico Restaurant, the ex Tunny Net.

The Event will be mainly an Optimists sailors' competition where the ultimate award is the Euromed Overall Trophy which over the past 12 years has seen eleven different winners. These came from Ireland, Sweden (twice), Malta (five times), Italy, Turkey and Russia (twice). Malta's Thomas Zammit Tabona is the only sailor to have won the Trophy twice, in 2006 and 2007, the second victory at the age of 13-years. The youngest winner of the award has been 11-year-old Russian Nikita Ushkov, a victory she registered in 2009. Registration starts on Monday the 17th and until such date the Organisers are confident that foreign competitors keep coming forward.

The Optimist Sailing Dinghy is acknowledged as a one design single handed sailing craft where only sailors under the age of 16 years are eligible to contest in this class racing. This is the largest junior class in the World and a recognised ISAF International Class.

The young Optimist fleet will be divided into 3 classes namely; Open division boys & girls 12-15yrs the Cadet division boys & girls 8- 11 years and the Beginners class girls and boys who have been sailing for 1year.The Malta Championship is also an attraction for Laser dinghy sailors where participation is not constrained by an age limit. Here there will be 3 classes; 4.7 Boys, 4.7 Girls and the Laser Radial. Following last year's introduction there will once again be an RS Feva class, dedicated to the 3.64m dinghy, acclaimed to provide youngsters with a sailing learning platform and said to be spreading around the world like wildfire. Here too participation will be open and there will be just one class.
A good number of the foreign sailors are normally accompanied by other members of their family thus the Malta Championship is an occasion to enjoy a ‘Christmas' competitive event in milder weather conditions from those prevailing in their countries. Furthermore the foreign groups always make it a priority on their stay to go on excursions to Malta's places of historical and cultural interest. Certainly, Euromed is an established winter event and a typical local attraction under the sport tourism spectrum.

As on previous occasions the Malta Euromed Championship will be held under the jurisdiction of a panel of three International Jury Members. This year these are Bernardette Delbartb (France), Henry Sleutel (Netherlands) and Paul Withers (Great Britain) who will be assisted by a National Jury team made up of Jovin Rausi and Godwin Zammit under the chairmanship of Peter Valentino and assisted by the Malta Sailing Federation president Anna Rossi, who will run the technical and logistic aspect of the event.

The Championship's Principle Race Officer will be Peter Dimech who will be assisted amongst others by Jenny Camilleri, Anthony Miggani, Norman Cutajar and Paul Warren. Jean Paul Flori Soler a member of the organising committee is also coach of the senior optimist team a role he has held for the past thirteen years.