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Introduction It was decided in the spring of 1995 that the UK Finn class needed a source book of information pertaining to the setting up, tuning and sailing of the Finn. Its market was to be anybody considering taking up the challenge of the Finn, the young beginner, the club sailor, an old hand wanting something fun to read or someone considering renovating and fitting out an older hull. What you are now reading is the end result and hopefully all these needs have been catered for within this booklet. The purpose of this manual is to provide a guide for prospective and future Finn sailors, to spread enthusiasm and ideas, to provide an informative and interesting basis for Finn recruitment and further learning and to give enough basic information to get a sailor going in their Finn, whether it is in an older glass or wood boat needing a refit or a newer model requiring some fine tuning. What is covered herein generally follows the universally recognised methods of fitting out and setting up the Finn. Once a basic understanding is achieved, the Finnster can progress and develop his own methods. It was decided early on that it should not be within the scope of this manual to cover general sailing theory. This would just be a repetition of what has been written before, and can be found more professionally written in many books. Rather, the content has been concentrated on the Finn and on its peculiarities and idiosyncrasies. However some general sailing theory has been included where it was thought to be pertinent and where it was felt that it added to the general flow of the text and where its omission would cause doubt and confusion. Some of the material within this booklet has been taken from issues
of the British Finn Association Newsletter, more lately called PUMP, and
many other articles and extracts of articles have been combined to make
this Finn Sailing Manual as complete as one would expect it to be. The
articles included herein that have been previously published have been
edited so that they conform to the structure and continuity of the manual.
In order to create an homogeneous whole no attempt has been made to credit
authors in the text. They have all been listed elsewhere. As many aspects
of Finn sailing that a newcomer to the class would want to know in order
to get a boat and go sailing have been covered. Perhaps some have
been missed out through oversight, but there is always the second edition!
The Rickard Sarby designed Finn was first selected for the Olympic games in 1952 at Helsinki. A design competition was organised by the Finnish Olympic Authorities to find a suitable boat for the singlehanded class and after much testing of the various designs the Finn became the Olympic singlehander. It has been reselected for every Olympics since then. In the early days of Finn sailing, the boats were sailed with very stiff and heavy masts with a wedge inserted in a slot in the front of it to hold the boom down. The boats were very tough to sail, requiring brute force and plenty of stamina, with none of the modern equipment that is seen on today's Finns, such as travellers and kicking straps. It was the Dane, Paul Elvstrom, who introduced bendy masts with fuller sails. The sails were flattened upwind by bending the mast while still holding their fullness downwind. He also introduced the classic 'W' hiking position which is still universally used today. The Gold Cup, which is the World Championship of the class was first raced for in 1956 at Burnham-on-Crouch with 45 entries. The largest number of Finns sailing in any Gold Cup was achieved in 1970 at Cascais in Portugal when Jorg Bruder from Brazil won the Cup in a fleet of 160 Finns. The first European Championship was also held in 1956 in Holland. The Junior European Championship started in 1967 and the Veteran Gold Cup, now called the Masters, started in 1970. To look after the interests of the Finn class worldwide, the International Finn Association was formed in 1955 in Brussels and has now evolved into a highly organised, high profile organisation that places the Finn firmly in the eye of the sailing world. Originally all Finns were constructed from wood. The introduction of GRP was resisted by many, but finally in 1961 after much debate GRP Finns were allowed to compete in the Gold Cup. Fears were raised though when they filled the top three places and many thought that their wooden Finns would now be obsolete. However wooden boats staged a comeback when Hubert Raudaschl won the 1964 Gold Cup with a home built wooden boat and in 1966 his wooden boats were placed 1st and 2nd. At the 1972 Olympics aluminium masts were used for the first time and soon after became widespread in competition despite much opposition and resistance. They soon proved to be superior than the old wooden masts and were used in conjunction with Hyde and North sails. Double bottomed boats were first allowed in Finns in 1974 and UK builder Peter Taylor was the first to take advantage of this. Taylor GRP double bottomed boats finished 1st, 2nd and 4th in the 1976 Gold Cup, the boats proving to be exceptionally fast offwind. With the introduction of modern aluminium masts, and now carbon fibre masts, that can support a wider range of helmsman body weight, the Finn became easier to sail and more accessible to a much broader range of helmsmen from 12 stone upwards. This together with rule changes and modern devices such as full length travellers, ball-bearing-block control-lines, sidedeck padding and ratchet blocks, opened the class up to people who would have found it nearly impossible to sail a Finn well in a strong wind in the 50s and 60s. This has made the class much more competitive and less brawn-orientated. In the late seventies American Vanguard hulls sailed by US ex-Laser sailors dominated the International scene. The Vanguard shape is fairly narrow down its length, has a fine bow to aid upwind performance and a broad transom to promote early planing. This hull together with a Needlespar 3M mast and a North sail proved to be the standard for many years to come. In the mid nineties the trend has turned to a variety of highly refined and well thought out modern hulls, in particular the British built Devoti hull. With the adoption of carbon masts at a much reduced weight to the old metal masts, Finn sailor's once more have a choice of mast manufacturer.
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