Rod Davis
Man up
The Finn sailing dinghy has a certain mystique about it. The physicality, history and Olympic of the toughest of the sailing boats ever to be used in the Games. Not something for the faint-hearted but a boat for men in their prime! There is a long history with the Finn among the Kiwis. Russell Coutts, John Cutler and Craig
Monk have all won Olympic medals. On top of that, Josh Junior is the current Finn World Champion, and Dean Barker and Dan Slater have both raced Finns at the Olympic Games for New Zealand. Against this intimidating background a strange thing happened:
I got talked into sailing in the New Zealand Finn Masters regatta! Crazy, I know, as I had never been in a Finn before. At first I did not know if Mark Perrow and Dan Bush (both OK Dinghy sailors and 30 years younger than me) were serious, or just setting me up for a reality lesson in ‘real man sailing’. The thought of it became a little daunting as my sailing career
was pretty much backwards from the ‘normal’ path of a Finn sailor. I started doing bow and crewing on big boats before crewing, and then skippering, Stars, Solings and match racing teams. Dinghy sailing only started with my first OK, about seven years ago. And it wasn’t a quick learn. Old dogs, new tricks… you know the story. The Finn is much bigger and heavier than an OK. Truly, it feels
like a ship compared to a boat. The Olympic boat is longer, wider and has more sail area and is 30 per cent heavier. The Finn is the heavyweight of all the singlehanders, weighing in at 107kg! The practical size difference of this monster became clear from
the very first sail. An hour in light wind to figure which string corresponded to which cleat – it was like an aircraft carrier compared to the OK. Just pulling the boat and dolly up the beach in the soft sand was a mission. Just keep muttering something about ‘real man’s boat’. The gameplan for the Masters racing was simple: #1 do the basics as right as practical, #2 keep the mast pointed up and the
32 SEAHORSE
rudder pointed down, and #3 learn as much as possible to become better. Some bits of that plan went better than others. To get the basics, well, think of being a sponge, so you can soak
up the knowledge and help from the real Finn sailors in the boat rigging lot. To a man the sailors were great and open to helping this newbie to the class, answering all the rudimentary questions I could throw at them. Collectively, this set me up well. ‘For today’s conditions, put the
mast rake here, sheet the boom all the way down so the end of the boom is on the rail and on the deck at the same time, move the board pin all the way back, downwind the board comes up to here – any higher and the boat will become skittish’ (important for game plan #2!). As many were OK sailors too I often heard, ‘When in doubt, sail it like an OK.’ Oh, and remember the OK lesson of letting the vang off enough
to get under the boom when tacking or gybing. Otherwise your head will take a severe beating. Part of my craziness in trying a Finn was inspired by Hans Fogh.
Hans was a competitor, friend and then my coach in the Soling. Even well into his 60s Hans had total devotion and enthusiasm to improve and become the best he could be. Or as a coach, to make us the best we could be. It was infectious, a lesson I take with me every day. Or at least try to. That, and no fear of someone else’s expectations on perfor-
mance, give you the freedom to try different things. Or go back and sail in regattas or classes that you were very good in, or try something new! Once you get past protecting your ego what could possibly go wrong? Back to the Finn. First day of the three-day regatta was in
15-22kt of wind, smooth water, shifty and puffy. Not really ‘drag race’ stuff, but head out of the boat to deal with the chaos of boats sailing in different directions and the scattering puffs downwind. Little windier than I had hoped for, but time to man up. First lesson, and one I repeated over and over again throughout
MAX RANCHI
ROBERT DEAVES/PEARLY KING
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