Finn Down-but not out for many.

Discussion in 'Sailboats' started by Doug Lord, Apr 3, 2019.

  1. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    When we were younger my brother and I raced Windmills but his real love was the Finn(mine the FD). Looks like the boat may no longer be part of the Olympics for the first time in a loooong time.





     
  2. powerabout
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    powerabout Senior Member

    Laser going down as well, current cluster is a gift to all the new single handed dinghys vying for top dog
     
  3. messabout
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    messabout Senior Member

    Doug the Finn is said to have been designed by a conoe builder...........whether that is true I cannot confirm. The Finn has a rather large entrance angle which makes it inclined to plow and throw a lot of water skyward when in a rough seaway. The after part is pinched together much more than a modern dinghy would be. It is also way too heavy by today's standards. All things considered it is far from any sort of modern dinghy. It is a demanding boat that over time has necessarily demonstrated admirable ability of the skippers. Elvstrom was a master of the class but he was also a superb sailor that could make an ordinary boat look good.
     
  4. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    My brother loved the boat. I only sailed one once and I thought it was a blast-the second Olympic Class I ever sailed. But I'm sure you're right- there has been a lot learned since the Finn was designed . But still there is something great about that boat or there sure was when I was 16!
     
  5. CT 249
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    CT 249 Senior Member

    It's definitely true that the Finn's designer Rickard Sarby was a top class designer in the Swedish canoe classes. The Swedish cruising canoes were quite substantial boats, nothing like an IC, and the Finn is very similar to one of Sarby's C Class canoes.

    The entrance angle is actually fairly fine even by the standards of boats designer decades later. Sarby's designs had fine bows for years before the Finn was created, and compared to her competitors like Spikle or the earlier Olmpic boat the Firefly, the Finn's bow was very fine. It is, as you say, a very heavy boat and the stern is narrow, probably a hangover from her canoe heritage.

    The question of what actually is "a modern dinghy" is an interesting one in itself, of course, but the Finn is still very popular - far more so than any foiler or skiff, for example.
     
  6. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

  7. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Designer of the Finn:
    Rickard Sarby 1912-1977

    [​IMG]
    Very little is documented about Rickard Sarby before the Finn came along, but he was a fascinating person, multi-talented and self-educated with extraordinary gifts and creativity. He was born in 1912 in a small village called Pesarby, which is about 50 km north of Uppsala (which is 70 km north-west of Stockholm). The name of the village actually gave rise to the family name. He was the youngest of four brothers and one sister. His only formal education was the six years he spent at Swedish elementary school.

    Rickard came from a very talented and creative family, each one being artistic or musical in some way. When the family moved to Uppsala in the 1930s, Rickard was educated as a barber. For many years he ran one of the biggest barbershops in Uppsala, which became famous because of its imaginative and prize winning Christmas window displays.

    Soon after arriving in Uppsala, Rickard was also introduced to canoe sailing and skate sailing by his oldest brother Ernst, who was an enthusiast and a driving force of Uppsala Kanotförening.

    Uppsala Kanotförening was founded in 1916 as a sport club for elite canoe paddling by a young engineer Sven Thorell, who would later become one of Sarby’s main opponents in the design competition for the 1952 Olympics. The clubhouse is situated 9 km south of Uppsala on the shores of Lake Ekoln, the northern part of Lake Mälaren, an ideal area for small boat sailing and racing.

    The club became a unique breeding ground for small boat sailing, as well as skate sailing, and it was in this environment that Rickard was in his element, designing, building and racing sailing canoes. He was an innovator in boat and sail building techniques including producing laminated waterproof paper sails at a time after World War II when sail cloth was hard to obtain. He also designed the original flap bailer that was later commercialised as the ‘Elvstrøm’ bailer.

    All this experience came to a head in the Finn. His approach was to sketch full size drawings while also building scale models. The first Finn was built in double diagonal planking, which proved to be fast, and suitable for amateur building, but later, boats were also built from baking layers of veneer strips over a shell, and he also built some fibreglass hulls.

    Sarby’s legacy cannot be overstated. His design was so perfect that it has remained at the forefront of international and Olympic competition for six decades, while undergoing a continuous development in rules and technology. However, the hull shape, developed from the Swedish sailing canoes, and controlled by a strict set of class rules, remains untouched to this day.
     
    powerabout likes this.

  8. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

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