John Ripard

John C. Ripard (born March 7, 1930 in Malta ) is a Maltese sailor and entrepreneur.

Sports career

fishing

At a young age he was very fond of underwater fishing. Among other things, he represented his country in 1959 at the World Underwater championships in Portugal.

sailing

Ripard's real passion, however, was sailing. Four years earlier, in 1955, he started for Malta at the Mediterranean Games in Barcelona in the Snipe class . In 1960 he took part in the Star Class at the Summer Olympics in Rome with his brother Paul .

In the following years he drove numerous regattas, including in front of Tunisia , Italy and Sicily .

In 1968 Ripard won the first Middle Sea Race (today: Rolex Middle Sea Race ) off Malta with his boat "Josian" . He was able to repeat this triumph two years later with the "Ticca". He also won a regatta off Genoa twice in his class .

referee

In the early 1980s he was elected international arbitrator.

In 1983 Ripard was chairman of the racing committee at the Louis Vuitton Cup . At the America's Cup of 1987, held in front of Fremantle (near Perth , Australia ), he acted as a changing referee. Ripard was also a member of the international jury at the competitions in 1988, 1992 and 1995.

The high point of his career as a referee was his appointment to the jury for the 1996 Summer Olympics . The sailing competitions here took place in Savannah, Georgia .

Honors

On December 13, 1992, during the celebrations of the Maltese Republic Day, Ripard received the Midalja ghall-Qadi tar-Repubblika ( English : Medal for Service to the Republic ) from the hands of the President Censu Tabone .

Ripard is President of the Royal Malta Yacht Club .

Entrepreneur

Nowadays Ripard is President of the Port Cottonera Consortium , an architectural and urban planning office that develops development concepts for the Maltese cities.

In addition, as chairman and owner, he and his son run John Ripard & Son (Shipping) Limited , the archipelago's leading shipping agency . The family has been running the company for four generations since 1901.