The Malta Young Sailors Club ended the year 2005 on a high note with the successful organisation of the sixth edition of the EUROMED Malta Championship, which hosted 92 competitors from 12 countries, and is cruising into the New Year under full sails by having ten of their gallant youngsters compete in the Dubai Junior Regatta.
From a modest launch six years ago, where 25 competitors from 10 nations took part, the Dubai Junior Regatta made remarkable headway and this year it is expected to attract over 130 competitors from 18 nations, a feat well pronounced in the event’s promotion slogan as being ‘the world’s biggest junior sailing event, providing young enthusiasts with a unique mix of experiences both on and off the water’.
On this fifth edition of the Dubai Junior Regatta the Malta team will have eight sailors competing in the Optimist Class and two will race in the Laser 4.7. The Optimist Sailing Dinghy, the largest junior class in the World, is an internationally recognised one design single handed sailing craft, where only sailors under the age of 16 years are eligible to contest in this class racing.
The Malta team in the Optimist Class will be made up of Karl Cremona (15 year-old), the current national champion seniors, an 11th placing in last year’s Europeans and a third placing in Euromed 2005, Gabriel Pace (13) first Maltese in and third placed in Euromed 2005, Thomas Zammit Tabona (12) Junior Champion 2005, Ella Marie Fleri Soler (13) Girls National Champion 2005, Sarah Manduca (12) first Girls Juniors 2005, Matthew Scicluna (14), Sean Borg (13), and Lee Gauci, (13).
Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Apap Bologna and her 15-year-old brother Richard will be competing in the Laser 4.7 Class. Following a convincing performance last year where she attained second place in the local Laser 4.7 ranking and a third place in the Euromed, Elizabeth goes to Dubai in high spirits. Her positive attitude should help her face the strong challenge anticipated in the Girls Laser Class especially from Sweden’s Cecilla Strombeck, the Egyptian sisters Dina and Rania Ramadan and from the Belgian twosome Charlotte Chauver and Adeline Stals.