fantastic finn- four year itch

I bought my Finn 5 years ago off the back of watching them scream back into the Hamble River (much like how the Olympics are showing them) and just had to have a go. Without doubt it is one of my top 5 boats i've ever sailed. It's so powerful but so graceful...a bit daunting at first when you realise there are 32 blocks to control 1 sail and a low boom to clear, depowering and powering up is a piece of cake.

 

The best tip I ever got was from Giles Scott which was "the more you put into it, the more rewarding it becomes" - never a truer word said...and the best lesson I ever learnt was try not to gybe in medium-heavy airs from 100deg boom out, has a tendancy to fall over!! The only downside (which is merely an obstacle and nothing that put me off) was that the boat weighs SOOOO much, because of the alloy centreboard, and becomes a pain pulling around the dinghy park after a full day sailing.

 

But...if in doubt - I would highly recommend a sail on one...then buy one! My only regret is that I couldn't afford to run the Finn and the B14, but nothing saying I won't buy another in the future.  

20 boat turnouts.... they'll learn far more from sailing in a mixed ability fleet far quicker than they would trying to work out the quirks of some random boat in the spreadsheet fleet. 

Now if they were a big guy, I'd like to recommend they bought a..... erm, ah, it appears we don't have a big guys single hander.  In fact the only possible option would be a Solo with a D Section and full sail, but inland they're still going to get minced.  So the only fleet option open is the Flying Fifteen.... no thanks, hassle on a stick.  So yes to hear Uncle Rodney tell us there were 46 Finns here at one point, yep that stinks.  WTF happened, I reckon I've only seen a couple come and go over the 10 years I've been sailing here. 

And if the Finn Fleet was still going, then no, things would quite different.  My own little adventures into boat buying all stem for ultimately being too heavy to sail a Laser and therefore trying to find something 'perfect' for handicap racing.  In the 80's I guess I would have sold Laser and joined the Finns....

It's taken a bit of time and distance away from racing to realise that a) no perfect boat exists and b) handicap racing sucks, so even if a) did exist, the racing experience would still be awful.  

Now to let something as precious as a big guy's fleet disappear, well that is true mindless thinking imho.

there's one at the club currently.  I really didn't enjoy sailing mine... but it's difficult to reflect back on these things; did I really not like the boat?   I had tested one before buying and liked it enough, well liked going sailing and not capsizing on every douse, hoist, gybe and upwind lull.  

Or was it the fact that I racing it in a handicap fleet against jeers of 'bandit' whenever I did okay, or getting mashed when it was windy?  Either way I sold it and joined 10 other guys at the time sailing RS300s and thoroughly loved the racing again.... basically because most of us didn't care what the spreadsheet said, as we had our own race with in the PY fleet.  I actually changed clubs to maintain the class racing when the 100 came out.... 

it was pimp, but the lure of fleet racing and getting over my past gripes with RS made the decision simple... move on, get a 300 and join in the fun.

What happened?  I don't know, I moved to another club with the 100 and when I came back a year later they'd all but gone except the few of the original guys.  I returned as the journey to the cotswolds was just a nightmare- 2 hours for 50 miles behind classic cars and Sunday drivers.   I guess we all had our reasons, mine was continuing to fleet race and I went to the nearest club with other 100s on the magic list.  I guess a few drop out and the critical mass is lost...  either way it was damn shame, the 300 was a great boat for that lake.