Author: Rodion Mazin

San Diego, Cal – Nine Finns signed up for the SDYC New Years Day Race with sunny skies treating the fleet that shook off the New Years’ Eve cobwebs and made it out on beautiful San Diego bay. Even though the line was quite long to accommodate some of the 75+ larger yachts including 12 meter El Moro, and many other big, racing boats, all the Finns fought it out at the heavily favored, pin end of the starting line.
Lee Hope timed things perfectly and popped out to an early lead. The first leg presented a generally backing wind with plenty of holes to make things interesting. Lee kept things together to round the first windward mark with a good lead. Mike Entwistle moved into second w/Gary Mitchell recovering from sailing into a hole after the start to move into third.
On the long downwind leg, Commodore Mike Dorgan showed off his ‘off-wind’ skills, passing 4 boats and moving into the lead by the leeward mark. On the final long upwind Mike Entwistle tried to challenge Dorgan but couldn’t get close enough. Dorgan finished in first place comfortably with Entwistle a few boat lengths back.
SDYC’s current Commodore, Brian Thomas sailed clean and smart, consistently moving up all day and taking third overall. Gary Mitchell, Lee Hope, and James Lawson rounded out the top five with everyone finishing within about 5 minutes of each other after a nice tour of San Diego Bay, making for a fun race.
It was a great start to the New Year and the new decade. The Finn Fleet at SDYC and Southern California continues to be growing, strong, competitive and especially fun…..!

By Michael Entwistle USA 27

Photo by Gary Adler

On behalf of the USA Finn Association (USAFA) I wanted to thank you for your continued support of our organization. We hit some record numbers in 2019, with over 90 members, and over 30 boats on the starting line at USA National and North American Championships.

A quick recap of 2019:

• we finally started printing and mailing of the Solo semiannual newsletter
• we increased our Facebook page fan base by over 30%
• we started releasing official rankings through finnusa.org
• our website looks better than ever and has a constant feed update
• we released two new programs that will hopefully help to increase participation in regattas (boat loaner program and travel grant program)

Plans for 2020:

• increase participation rates in major regattas
• increase the number of smaller Finn regattas across the U.S.
• complete the process of reestablishing 501(c)3 and setting all the documents in order to comply with current laws and regulations
• have an officially certified IFA measurer in U.S.
• continue the release of the Solo newsletter and improve the quality of the content
• reelection of all the officers during USA National Championship in Corpus Christi

Class initiatives success and class growth depend on your financial support! Please pay your dues in a timely manner through https://finnusa.org/join-the-class/

Sail numbers expiration dates and membership status can be found at https://finnusa.org/usafa-documents/

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.  Looking forward to seeing you on the race course!

Very respectfully,

Rodion Mazin

USAFA Secretary

secretary@finnusa.org

708-979-1448

www.finnusa.org

https://www.facebook.com/NAFinnclass/

The Miami Finn fleet, based at Coconut Grove Sailing Club on Biscayne Bay, started its new winter series on January 4, on a day that recorded record heat, 88 degrees, with a 12-14 knot breeze. Three double windward-leeward courses were run in beautiful Miami sailing conditions. The next winter series event is January 18, when it is expected many of the Olympic-level aspirants in town for the World Sailing Cup Miami will join the fun.

Bermuda’s Rockal Evans, who arrived early in Miami to prepare to qualify both his country and himself for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, won all the races, assisted by his coach, World Champion and European Champion Ed Wright of the British Sailing Team.

Awards for podium finishes were gift certificates to West Marine, provided by SKYFREESHOP, world-wide duty free stores in the best airports. Coconut Grove Sailing Club volunteers did a superb job setting the courses and opening up the club for margaritas and quesadillas after sailing.

CGSC will be hosting the Finns monthly throughout the year. Those dates are on the Coconut Grove Sailing Club website.

The Miami Sail Week (Finn East Coast Championship) March 6, 7, 8 will be a three-day event that is part of this iconic Miami regatta series with Coconut Grove Sailing Club, one of the most dinghy-focused clubs in the world, hosting the Finns.

The Miami Sail Weekend three-day regatta is a great prelude to the Finn Midwinters in Sarasota (4-hour interstate drive from Miami) scheduled for March 13,14, 15.

There are plenty of lodging opportunities in Coconut Grove within walking or biking distance from the club. There are also several places to store your boat before, between, and after the regatta days. Contact charlesheimler@yahoo.com for details.

With the Miami Winter Finn Series and the Finn Midwinters in Sarasota, Florida warm water sailing is now a special opportunity for Finnsters to experience summer sailing conditions in Northern Hemisphere winter.

Results at the CGSC website.

By Charles Heimler

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to sail a Finn while climbing a mountain? Well, I’m sure someone has; but now that I mention it you want to try it, don’t you? We have a place for you. Sailing Lake Dillon at 9200 feet of elevation is beautiful. There is a consistent wind that fills in over the dam and the views of the Breckenridge ski area, Keystone resort, and the Continental Divide make for an amazing sail. We hold the Rocky Mountain Championship every year in late August when the water is warming up. You can brag that you have sailed the highest Finn regatta in the world, and not just because it is legal in Colorado. We have camping areas and hotels close to Dillon Yacht Club with plenty of family activities to keep everyone busy while you are on the water. It is a fantastic destination regatta for all. They even sell bottles of oxygen for you, sea level guys, that are spoiled by all that extra air you keep down there. Where else can you sail in the summer while looking at snow-covered peaks?

We also sail every Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon just north of Denver. We have 8 Finns sitting at Union Sailing Club. We have a loaner Finn for anyone that is in the area and would like to join us. Please “like” our FB page: Finn Rocky Mountain. We have a couple of guys that travel to several national Finn regattas and train as often as we can, so there is some good competition and some challenging conditions. If you will be in the Denver metro area and would like to sail with us, please let us know at rockymountain@finnusa.org

Final 2019 USAFA rankings are now available at https://finnusa.org/rankings/. Congratulations to Darrel Peck (USA 35) who came on top with 135.99 points, just 0.7 points ahead of Rodion Mazin (USA 16). Derek Mess CAN (115) finished the season in third place with 134.89 points. We expect a lot of activity and very close competition in 2020. Happy New Year to everyone and remember to pay your dues!

Finn USA National, North American, and Masters North American Championships are the biggest events for the Finn Class in North America besides Miami Word Sailing Cup, Round 2. These 3 events are Type 1 regattas that have the biggest participation rates and give the most amount of points for USAFA rankings. The USAFA leadership made a decision to forecast the schedule for the next 6 years and spread theses major events equally amongst West, East, Gulf Coasts, and the Great Lakes regions. These parts of the country have seen the biggest growth of the Finn activity in recent years. Following the principles of equal opportunity and fair distribution among all the coasts and the major fleets. Bids for 2021 events can be submitted through the online form.

Before many regattas, I walk around the boat park seeing sailors polishing boat bottoms with PTFE, etc. to go faster!?

However, these same sailors will open a bailer or both when it’s windy and leave them open all day. (Many of these sailors use a leech tension gauge without measuring how much their sails have shrunk–that’s just funny and I love to bring it up). If you’ve ever caught weed on the rudder while doing some speed burns in training, you know how catastrophic it can be to boat speed. Now, look at the projected area of the bailer while open. It should be easy to visualize the impact. So, why just open it and forget it? On most of my boats, for the last 50 or so years, I’ve attached a line to the bailers to be able to pull them up closed quickly. That still required “going in” to open the bailers again when necessary. Around 1980 something, I saw a lever system in use on Derek Mess’ Vanguard allowing remote control of the bailers from a hiking position. I started rigging up systems for myself since then.

My latest system replaces the plastic grate on the supermax bailers with a machined plastic (UV protected HDPE to be exact), a lever to open and close the bailer. Some people ask if it slows water egress. It does not as the bailer’s gate is only 13/16″ square (remember high-school science class — the smallest part of the funnel restricts flow). One of many things in our tricky sport that makes you say, “umm”.

By Coach D> 7 x Finn NAs champ.

Long Beach, Cal. – ABYC Turkey Day Regatta is in the books. Incredibly beautiful weather with Saturday sunny, perfect temperatures, and breeze clocking around to the ‘Long Beach normal’ with 8-10 knots early finishing the day with 12-14 knots and more. Saturday night Finn sailors were treated to a great sunset on the bar deck and the famous Thanksgiving turkey feast. ABYC dis a great job serving over 140 sailors from multiple classes. Sunday was more of the same perfect, sunny, mild weather in the 8-11 knots range. Close racing among the fleet and many sailors improving and mixing it up- including and welcome new Finn sailor Ed Feo from ABYC! Congrats podium (Turkey) winners.

1. Mike – 5 pts.
2. Robert Kenny – 9 pts.
3. Andreas Siggelkow – 17 pts.

By Michael Dorgan

Photos courtesy of JoySailing.com (Bronny Daniels)

Full Results https://www.sailwave.com/results/ABYC_2019_Turkey_Day.htm

US Sailing invites all the U.S. and Canadian Finn sailors to participate at the World Sailing Cup, Round 2, Miami. All the U.S. sailors are offered a  free 1-year U.S. Sailing membership. To get the free membership, e-mail your registration to US Sailing Olympic Coordinator, Kate Drummy at: katedrummey@ussailing.org. For more questions or concerns contact USAFA secretary at: secretary@finnusa.org.  Let’s make Finn great again!   

Darrel Peck (Coach D) will lead the Finn clinic at the Fairhope Yacht Club March 25th through March 27th. The clinic is conveniently scheduled between Finn Midwinters in Sarasota, FL and Gulf Coast Championship in Fairhope, AL and will be priced at $150 per boat.  All USAFA members will get a 10% discount if registered before 15 February 2020.

Clinic registration

Contact Coach D if you have any questions. darrell.peck@gmail.com

Clinic page