With St. Patrick’sFeast conjuring up images of fun, laughter, dancing, Guinness and all thingsIrish, the Royal Malta Yacht Club certainly did not want its members to missout on any fun and to this effect organised a jam packed weekend of racing,sailing taster sessions and a fun filled party held in the Club’s Restaurant.
Although quite afew boats are still on the hard, a number of yachts made the necessaryarrangements to participate in what was the first weekend regatta for keelboatsfor 2016. Two coastal races were held over the weekend, both starting insideMarsamxett Harbour. Saturday’s race sawall yachts heading north towards Comino.
With the gusty conditions inside the harbour, there was already someaction going on. Sean Borg’s Xpresso was first to get the clear winds exitingthe harbour, closely followed by Mario Sant’s Time Out, Anton Calleja’s Lartista followed by GodwinZammit’s Inspiration. The fleet had the perfect 15 knot breeze getting to Cominobefore being let down by the same wind after it had become very light roundComino. Unfortunately, Xpresso was the only boat to manage the time limit onSaturday leaving them with a very strong position for Sunday’s final race andoverall prize.
Sunday was yet another beautiful day with Southerly winds and flat calmwater. A course was set round the Munxar mark and back to the Yacht Club. Twoyachts, Xpresso and Time Out fought it out till the last second, leaving no roomfor errors. Ultimately it was the Xpresso crew who managed to emerge victoriousonce again making them the weekend’s overall winners.
On Saturday evening, members and their friends thronged the Club toattend Shamrock & Shenanigans, a St. Patrick’s themed party. Guests weretreated to an Irish themed buffet complete with typical dishes such as Irishstew and Colcannon, Guinness and Kilkenny on tap and accompanied by an Irishband who kept the crowd going until the early hours with lively Irish tunes.
As part of its efforts to attract more people to sailing, the RoyalMalta Yacht Club Sailing School organised an ‘Open Day’, wherein over fiftypeople undertook sailing lessons in the harbour. The overwhelming responsereceived resulted in the ‘Day’ being stretched into the whole weekend in orderto accommodate all the requests received. Great weather conditions contributedfurther to the success of this initiative.
The weekend came to a close on Sunday afternoon, when prizes for theweekend’s races were given out in the presence of His Excellency the IrishAmbassador Pádraig MacCoscair, who introduced the Beaufort Trophy which wasgiven to the overall winner of the weekend races. The Beaufort Trophy, which was beingpresented for the first time in the history of the Club was presented to SeanBorg and his crew of Xpresso. Prizeswere given to the crews of Time Out and Inspiration who gained second and thirdplace overall respectively.
“My crew and I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and we are very proud tobe the first winners of the Beaufort Trophy” commented Sean Borg after prizegiving. “As always these races require a lot of teamwork and I take thisopportunity to thank my crew for an amazing time!”
The St. Patrick’s Weekend Regatta was made possible through theassistance of the Irish Embassy in Malta.
Thank you to Sean Borg for contributing to this article