Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1544097
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 29 MARCH 2026 FEATURE Oars, stopwatches and a sport that refuses to be forgotten A week before the Freedom Day regatta races, Juliana Zammit went down to Birgu to find the rowers already on the water, with stopwatches running, and a club that has spent five years quietly rebuilding itself from the inside out I arrive at the Birgu Regatta Club two hours before sunset, and the rowers have already pushed off from the club's waterfront and are out on the course. The harbour has taken on that golden late af- ternoon light with Valletta sitting on the far side and Fort St Ange- lo keeping watch at the mouth of the creek. Along the point, a man stands holding two stopwatch- es with a small group gathered around him, while others sat on the low wall by the water and watched the boats through binoc- ulars. On Tuesday, the traditional Freedom Day Regatta returns, one of two annual boat races. The regatta is ostensibly the oldest sporting event on the island with roots going back to the Middle Ages and professional racing dat- ing to 1955. Held on Freedom Day (31 March) and Victory Day (8 Sep- tember), the regatta sees clubs from across the Three Cities and beyond racing each over a 1,040-metre course along the Grand Harbour. The top three finishers in each of five race cat- egories collect points towards the Aggregate Shield. I first speak to the one at the frontline of the competition. Sven Refalo has been doing this since he was 13. Growing up in Bormla, where his brother rowed before him, the regatta is part and parcel of who he is. "They would launch the boats in summer and in win- ter," he tells me. "That is how it started." Sven now races with Birgu and is part of the rowing teams in the Tal-Midalji, Tal-Pass and Kajjik categories. Training year-round in the gym and on land before mov- ing to the water in the final two months, he recounts the tough training regime rowers undergo. This year, bad weather kept the boats docked longer than usual, putting the club at a disadvantage. Asked whether the regatta gets the recognition it deserves, he says, things have improved with a new organising committee in place. On the other side of the club is the committee, where I speak to Marlon Galea. He has been on the Birgu committee for five years. When the current leadership came in, the club was in a diffi- cult state, with old boats sitting unmaintained and no real plan in place. The committee's first priority was the fleet, which now stands at around 14 boats. Getting a new boat certified is a lengthy process involving a craftsman, a surveyor and inspections by other clubs before it can be registered with Transport Malta and put in the water. Running a competitive club, Marlon tells me, costs between €110,000 and €120,000 a year. Most clubs offset this through a bar or restaurant on the premis- es, but Birgu does not have one, so the committee organises cor- porate team-building days on the water and tombola evenings in the summer. "We are still behind when it comes to commercialisation but we hope the government will help in the future," he says. The sport has changed consid- erably, Marlon says, with boats now lighter, training more rig- orous and GPS technology being trialled during Tuesday's races to track positions in real time. But Marlon is clear about the limits of modernisation in a sport that dates back many years. "The boats are what they are, and the sport is what it is. You cannot add things that help too much because at a certain point, you change what it is entirely," he says. But it does seem that there is hope for the future with Mar- lon recounting how the club was caught off guard by the response when it launched a youth acad- emy. "We received much more applications than expected, with more girls than boys applying to learn how to row." At the point along the water- front where the boats return af- ter each run, the man with the two stopwatches is still there; his group still gathered around him comparing times, while others sit on the wall with binoculars trained on the water. As we watch the boats get ready to go into position, with their little sidekick, a boy who helps guide the rowers' direction sitting at the front of the boat, I sit with the on- lookers. Stephen Paris is among them. A Bormla resident in his early fifties, who served as secretary and pres- ident of the Bormla club and later as president of the Malta Rowing Association, these days Stephen watches his son row. He docu- ments the season daily on Insta- gram and posts training footage for the rowers to watch back. He remembers the regatta dif- ferently from how it looks today, with the whole port filling with supporters and clubs arriving with a band on board the boats. "The atmosphere is different now," he says with a hint of nostalgia. But he adds that rowers are not ama- teurs anymore today. "They train properly and they watch what they eat. If you do not train prop- erly today, the others will be far ahead of you." In these harbour towns, the re- gatta is less a sporting fixture and more something you are born in- to. "Without meaning to, you end up a supporter. It gets into you," Stephen tells me as I prepare to leave. As the rowers heave through another run, their boat parts the glistening waters of the Grand Harbour. These are waters that can tell many a story but the re- gatta is probably the most colour- ful one of all. Left to right: Rower Sven Refalo and Birgu committee member Marlon Galea (Photo: James Bianchi/MaltaToday) Female Birgu Regatta team (Photo: James Bianchi/MaltaToday)