Above: a DN race start… push like hell on the tiller and shrouds before jumping in bobsleigh style. DO NOT get left behind. For so fast a craft the DN (left) appears simple, though like most simple-looking sailboats there is plenty to tweak and the challenge of optimising the mast-sail combination bears justified comparison with the Olympic Finn. Many of the best DN sailors will already be familiar to Seahorse readers including match racer Karol Jablonski (12 DN world titles) and A-Cat champion Matt Struble. Even Ben Ainslie’s extremely accomplished Finn coach David Howlett is occasionally seen at a big regatta – where a typical entry of 150 DNs is normally split into three fleets
planks from scratch. We followed Joe’s plans as best we could. I campaigned that hull for several years and finished as high as seventh in the NAs which I think was pretty amazing. Joe Norton is not the tallest guy in the
world, actually he’s really short! The DN cockpit on his plan was designed to fit short people. At 6ft 4in I am probably one of the tallest DN sailors in the world. Somehow I was able to stuff myself into that boat and be somewhat competitive… About the same time Harken hired
another engineer, John Davenport. Soon afterwards a young sales guy named Mark Isabell was also added to the staff. John, Mark and I hit it off and at that point John really had caught the iceboat bug. In 1997 John travelled to Detroit to sail
in his first NAs. While there he met Piotr Burczynski who is one of the founding fathers of Polish DN sailing. He won the Gold Cup in 1979 and was looking for an American travel partner for his son Michal. The following year John met up
42 SEAHORSE
with the Burczynskis to travel to Finland to compete in the Gold Cup. John now had the iceboating disease
bad and it was infectious. In 1999 John and Mark travelled to Montreal to sail the NAs. I managed to resist and really wasn’t too fired up about this racing stuff yet. However, the three of us began building and tinkering with our DNs in the back shop at Harken. Three friends all working at Harken with free reign to build iceboats in the company shop. Life was good! In 2000 I finally relented and travelled
with John and Mark to Lake Miltona, Minnesota to compete in my first NAs. Surprisingly I had some success and fin- ished 15th in the Gold fleet. The legendary Jan Gougeon won that regatta. It was that regatta that lit the fire for
me. From then on John, Mark and I began to build and compete at a relentless pace. Over the next decade we built probably a dozen hulls and planks along with many, many runners. An important point in my learning curve came during the 2003 Gold
Cup on Lake Champlain in upstate New York. I had finished the Gold Cup some- where around 20th. John was a little worse. Piotr and Michal were there from Poland. Michal was competing and his father was coaching him. Between regattas Piotr borrowed a runner sharpener and took the time to reprofile and sharpen our runner edges. He walked us through his process and explained everything in detail. The next day John placed third and I was seventh! This was huge for us. Since then I’ve travelled and competed
in every NAs and every other Gold Cup across North America including all five of the Great Lakes. I travelled to Europe and sailed in the Gold Cup in 2008 on Lake Lipno in the Czech Republic. I’ve even had some success, finishing third in the NAs a few times and winning a few races. Most importantly, over these years I
have made many lifelong wonderful friends on both continents and had a million laughs and good times on the road and in the workshop with my teammates. I still get excited every time I step onto the ice. It’s always an adventure out there. If speed is your drug then you definitely need to give the DN a try. In Part II… DN mast guru Ron Sherry gets stuck into the detail
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GRETCHEN DORIAN
SEAN HEAVEY
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