The Malta Young Sailors Club sent a contingent of 11 sailors to the three-day Slovenian International Optimist Dinghy Halloween Regatta in picturesque Portoroz.
The race was earmarked as part of their preparations for the EUROMED Championships which take place in Mellieħa Bay between December 16 and 19. Sailors from other Maltese clubs also took part.
MYSC’s sailors were led by their performance coach Panos Papadakis and team leaders Mark Camilleri and Jaime Cremona.
Due to the number of participants, the sailors were split into three fleets for the first day where they were met by wet and stormy weather, which was quite a change from the local extended summer conditions they have been training in recently.
They all remembered how to get into their winter gear though and acclimatised quickly to the Slovenian waters.
Three races were sailed on the first day in winds of 20-27 knots and Thomas Wilson was the top local sailor ending the day with two fourth-place finish and a fifth placing to end the day seventh overall.
On the second day, the fleets were changed again to ensure that the level of each fleet was similar.
The weather however was very different, with much lighter winds giving marginal and shifty conditions which made things tricky for the racing committee and sailors alike with approximately eight hours spent on the water and only managing to sail two races out of the three scheduled.
Mathias Spiteri shone with a second- and fourth-place finish while Timothy De Cesare obtained a 10th and eight-placing. Julia Borg was the top female sailor among the MYSC contingent as she placed 94th overall.
The final day started with the sailors being split into Gold, Silver, and Bronze fleets according to their cumulative scores from the past two days. MYSC qualified four sailors in Gold, six in Silver, and one in Bronze fleets.
Tension spiked again because the weather was not on the sailors’ side since the glassy sea did not augur well. The race management team did all they could and managed to hold two races out of the scheduled three.
Spiteri and Wilson secured the best placing among the MYSC contingent to finish eighth and tenth respectively.
