Hebe Jebes Sep/Oct 2014 | Page 26

FEATURES Features 5TH MACAU INTERNATIONAL DINGHY REGATTA weekend of medals for Hebe Dragons team The end of June is traditionally one of the highlights of the year for Hebe Haven Yacht Club, Aberdeen Yacht Club and Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club sailors due to the Macau Regatta. It is a casual event organised by the Associação de Vela de Macau for various Hong Kong sailors to meet their counterparts in different waters and on different boats. It is also a social event with the parents and siblings getting together during the now very popular Saturday night BBQ and the lobby lounge of the former Westin Resort—now called Grand Coloane Beach Resort. This event could not be feasible without the support of all the clubs. It is a huge amount of work to move all the boats across. This year was no exception with one full 40’ container per club which had to be loaded a few days before the event 24 Hebe jebes • Sept/Oct 2014 with all the Lasers, Picos, Fevas, Optimists and even two safety boats—not to mention all the spare parts! A day before the event, Alfred, Kevin (ABC) and Clement (RHKYC) were already in position to offload the boats, set them up and be ready for Saturday’s race. On Sunday afternoon, it was the opposite but this time with the sailors. All the boats had to be dismantled, stacked in order, readied for loading again in the container and offloaded one more time in Hong Kong before Wednesday’s training! We never think of the logistics but, without such great backstage effort, there would be no such event. A great thanks to the three clubs and their staff for their hard work in preparing this event—and a special tribute to Kevin Lewis and Rob Allen who, five years ago, initiated this yearly competition. This year’s team for Hebe Haven was comprised of sixteen sailors and three adults divided into the following categories: 1. Laser Radial 1 – Jess Mihan 2. Laser Radial 2 – William Chan 3. Topper 1 – Shona Mihan 4. Stratos (Club team) – Sam Cooke / Max Turner / Grégoire Bourrut Lacouture 5. Pico 1 – Lily Reid 6. Pico 2 – Zachary Blacker & Timothée Bourrut Lacouture 7. Pico 3 – Ian Duncan & Pei Tsun Yip 8. Pico 4 – Zoe Bruwer & Rose Duckworth 9. Optimist 1 – Arthur Hainz 10. Optimist 2 – Nicolle Scholer 11. Optimist 3 – Jasmine Scholer 12. RS Feva 1 – Antonio Franco & Nathan Turner The support team was also very impressive with all the parents (and siblings) enjoying a relaxing and lazy weekend around the hotel’s swimming pool. At 09.00 Saturday morning all the teams were ready to go and were waiting for the competitor briefing before launching their boats onto the South China Sea. This year, Macau did a great job by bringing an International Race Officer who reminded all our young sailors of the basic rules of sailing as well as the meanings of various flags. This was welcomed by most as apparently a lot of them do not know how to read them! Thanks to his explanations, there were no more mistakes on the water. Class flags: very easy as they all have the boats logo! Course 1: like a Japanese flag Course 2: like a Japanese flag but blue Course 3: like an upside-down French flag Course 4: like a Danish flag with four ‘squares’ Course 5: a strange flag which is unlike 1, 2, 3 and 4! 1 2 3 4 5 25