On Friday 11 October, at 18:00, Joe Morana is giving a public talk in Maltese on traditional sailing boats and sailing techniques entitled “Ir-Riħ fil-Qala’” at the Maritime Museum in Birgu. This event is part of the Oral Traditions project of the Department of Maltese at the University of Malta, which is now in its fourth year, and coincides with the 2019 edition of Birgufest.
The talk, which is being held in collaboration with Heritage Malta, is open to the general public and entrance is free. The Oral Traditions project is supported by the Research Fund of the University of Malta and by Klabb Kotba Maltin.
The speaker will be looking briefly at the evolution of sailing vessels that travelled both between the Maltese Islands and beyond. He will be presenting the terminology in Maltese and looking at ways these ferries or fishing vessels operated.
Joe Morana, who was born in Birgu in 1956, has diplomas in Labour Studies and Marketing from the University of Malta and a Masters in Training and Human Resources Management from the University of Leicester. He worked for many years in the public service and was an official in a leading trade union.
He has been a sailing enthusiast for decades and has been part of crews on sailing boats in Malta and abroad. In recent years he has carried out research on lateen sails in Malta and Sicily and other parts of Italy.