The History of FINNFARE

The History of FINNFARE

Gallery of old covers 1961 to 1984, 1984 to 1997, 1997 to present

FINNFARE is the official publication of the International Finn Association - the magazine that brings the news and events of the Finn world to the sailors and the sailing world. FINNFARE started life in the spring of 1961, initiated by Fred H Miller as the magazine of the USA Finn Association, but with International aspirations.

Fred Miller published 8 issues of FINNFARE from the USA, but costs were high, and the magazine was costing too much money. For the Spring 1962 issue Vernon Stratton (then IFA secretary) was also listed as European Editor alongside Fred Miller who was Publisher and Editor-in-Chief. In his later issues, although the editorial was done in America, the printing and distribution was done from Europe to cut costs.

In 1963 Jack Knights took over as Editor until 1965 and published 5 issues. The printing of FINNFARE moved to Switzerland where the IFA Secretary Fred Auer lived. Manfred Schiller was the next Editor publishing 4 issues from 1965 to 1966. The issues that were printed in Switzerland were of a smaller page size (170 x 243 mm) than usual, but when Vernon Stratton took over as Editor in 1967 the page size returned to the usual 210 x 279 mm. Over the next 4 years until 1971, Vernon Stratton published 10 issues of FINNFARE, producing some of the best and the biggest issues so far. During this time Iain Macdonald-Smith also did much of the work of editing FINNFARE.

In December 1970 Vernon Stratton produced the largest issue of FINNFARE to date at 52 pages with reports and results from the 1970 Gold Cup. After Vernon Stratton's retirement from the IFA in 1971, Jan-Jaap Van Elst from Holland became the new Editor. During the next 4 years he published 5 issues.

Left to right:

Fred Miller

Editor 1961-1963

Jack Knights

Editor 1963-1965

Vernon Stratton

Editor 1967-1971

The next Editor was Georg Siebeck from Germany, who took over in 1975. Georg gave FINNFARE a professional touch and produced 7 very good looking FINNFAREs over the next 2 years.

When Georg Siebeck had to take over his fathers publishing house in June 1977, work on FINNFARE was reduced and in August 1977 he brought out a 'Short FINNFARE' with apologies for his inaction. As a compensation Georg Siebeck published the most interesting and most beautiful FINNFARE up to now in December 1977. It had a coloured cover (FINNFARE's first), 52 pages, lots of pictures, race results, technical details, drawings, whatever you want. Unfortunately Georg Siebeck never produced another issue. The December 1997 issue was destined to remain his swan-song. For two more years he had the best of intentions, but never burst into print again.

In 1979 Dr. Jacques Rogge took over the presidency of the IFA from Marino Barendson. He refloated FINNFARE by transferring the editorship back across the Atlantic to San Francisco and entrusting Shimon Craig Van Collie with the task. Over the next year and a half Shimon Craig Van Collie produced 5 16-page issues, but resigned from the post when Jacques Rogge retired as IFA President. Then he shipped all the piles of material he had received from Georg Siebeck two years earlier back across the ocean to Vienna and to the new Editor, Peter Mohilla.

Peter Mohilla's contribution to FINNFARE history is inestimable. Up to that time no previous editor had managed to sustain both regularity of production or lasted long in the position. Peter Mohilla managed both, producing four issues a year, every year, for five years. He started as he wanted to go on with a 56 page bumper issue with a colour cover and a 27 page section entitled 'Report from the Countries' - a country by country report of Finn sailing in 41 different countries.

Peter Mohilla obviously took great delight and care in Finn affairs around the world and even wrote remarks about some countries in the language of that country, notably Korean, Russian and Chinese. The response to his first issue was extremely favourable, although he had to reduce the expense of future issues by cutting pages and the colour cover.

Left to right

Georg Siebeck

Shimon Craig Van Collie

Peter Mohilla

Peter Mohilla was also an enthusiastic writer of articles for his FINNFARE's, many of which appeared in FINNLOG 1 when it was published in 1986. He appeared to take great delight in explaining the intricacies of gybing and tacking Finns, sailing in light and windy conditions, sailing upwind and downwind, and even Finn survival techniques.

Peter Mohilla edited his last FINNFARE in 1986. Over the five years of his editorship, he had produced 20 outstanding issues. In the summer of 1987, the IFA was looking for another editor. Andreas Muller produced a single issue of FINNFARE in the Summer of 1987 before the new Editor was found.

During the Kiel Gold Cup in 1987, Ines Sague was appointed as the new editor of FINNFARE. Ines was the first editor of FINNFARE who was not an active Finn sailor, although she did sail and had much experience in yachting reporting and was also an accomplished photographer. Between 1987 and 1990 she produced 9 issues of FINNFARE from Spain, at which point Josje Dominicus from Holland became Editor.

Josje Dominicus introduced a very professional image to FINNFARE, produced more issues than any other FINNFARE editor so far and also held the position longer than any other previous editor. The modern technological era of desktop publishing meant that FINNFAREs were easier to prepare that previously and over the next 7 years Josje produced 22 issues. In 1991 Josje was also appointed as the first Executive Director of the IFA, taking care of all day-to-day affairs of the class, as well as editing FINNFARE.

Josje Dominicus was the first FINNFARE editor who regularly used colour on the covers. Both Georg Siebeck and Ines Sague had used a spot colour to add a bit of life to the cover and Josje had also done this so far, but for the Olympic Edition in the Summer of 1992, FINNFARE sported a colour cover. Since then FINNFARE has always had a colour cover.

FINNFARE moved back to England for the third time in the Autumn of 1997, with Robert Deaves becoming the 12th Editor of FINNFARE. In November 1998, FINNFARE celebrated its 100th issue, with a special issue devoted to the history of a magazine that had documented the story of the Finn class since its early beginnings.