Malta m’n liefje m’n duifje

October 10, 2014

These were the first words of my mother when she learned WINSOME was being transported to Malta in order to compete in the Rolex Middle Sea Race 2014. I believe it was a Roal Dahl title. In the English version, the title is “someone like you”. Hard to understand how the different titles came about.

Tuesday 7 October we (Markus, Floris, myself) planned to fly to Locarno and continue Wednesday for Malta. However Locarno had very bad weather so we needed to make another plan. After having taken extra fuel we took off for a direct flight to Malta, where we landed at 1900. Hubert and Mariana Mifsud showed extreme flexibility by receiving us at the airport and by offering us at the same time a very nice dinner at their home.

Wednesday 8 October became an extra day. Markus left at 1420. After Mariana left the Kalkara Marina we could really start working on WINSOME. Claire, highly recommended by Nick Jones, showed her qualities right away. After we stopped in the early evening we had made good progress, including fixing back stay and placing the Main Sail.

Our mooring was next to VARUNA, the overall winner of RORC Sevenstar’s Round Britain and Ireland Race 2014.

Again a very good dinner at the Mifsud’s. Our reward was storing our reserve sails and transportation chocks in their garage!

Thursday 9 October. A slow start. We bought some self locking nuts for the cars of the Main Sail and we made a deal with a decent taxi to become our permanent chauffeur to drive us to and from the Kalkara Yard/Marina. It worked. Again lots of small jobs.

Then we visited the Royal Malta Yacht Club where we received a warm welcome. Last night we could study the starting area under a strong lamp.