Racing
Summer Racing Report
Words William Chan
Hebe Dragons Sailor & Crew on Jive for both the Typhoon Series & the Summer Saturday Series
Sun, Wind, Sail. These are the needs of a sailor. Although not
every race of the Helly Hansen Summer Series presented these
needs, I still had an extremely valuable and gratifying experience
racing with the Helly Hansen J80 team.
This summer, I was given the opportunity to race in a boat that
was different from the dinghy I was so used to. Fortunately, it
was similar in so many other aspects that I felt right at home,
and yet it still felt like the furniture in the house was not mine.
Racing with people that I have never sailed with before also felt
weird yet, as the races went by, I gradually felt like I became
part of the team. As I have never raced in a J80—let alone
crewed in a dingy, I might add—the learning curve for me
was very steep. That said, with every tack and gybe, I gained
invaluable knowledge and experience that would assist me in
every action I made later on.
Throughout the series, I also gained insight and understanding
in big boat racing from the other, more experienced crew
44 Hebe jebes • Sept/Oct 2014
members and the helm that were willing—at times even too
willing—to share their own experiences and faults in order to
inspire me to learn more in the field. I was frequently asked to
share my own experiences and understanding of racing tactics
that I have acquired from dinghy sailing, which allowed me to
further feel like an invaluable crew member on the team.
Although at the time of writing the Series is far from finished, I
have learned and gained so much more than I ever expected
and, at this point on, I would like nothing more than to discover
more and involve myself deeper in the world of big boat racing.
Furthermore, I feel as if I have been accepted into a new family.
The guidance and information given to me by my fellow crew
members makes me feel part of this other side of sailing, even
if sometimes I learnt more than I needed to know, as with the
green bucket!
Given the opportunity again, I would never hesitate to go repeat
the experiences that I have had on the Helly Hansen J80 team.
I would also like to thank my fellow crew members for bearing
with me as I was a complete ‘noob’ and needed a lot of help
and guidance to get me used to the boat. Without them, I
would only be a dinghy sailor.
Hebe Dragons隊員，在颱風盃帆船賽和夏季周六系列賽中以
Jive 參賽。
陽光、風、帆。這些就是船員所需的。 雖然不是每一場Helly
Hansen夏季系列賽都滿足了這些需求，我跟Helly Hansen
J80 隊伍仍然有過非常珍貴且愉快的比賽經驗。
這個夏天，我有機會使用一艘跟我慣常使用的小船不同的船參
賽。幸好，在很多方面它們都很相似，感覺就像在家一樣，只
是那些傢俬不是屬於我的。
跟