- About the Finn
- Videos for Finn Sailing
- Books for Finn Sailing
- Links for Finn Sailors
- The Vital Statistics
- Who’s Who in Finns
About the Finn
The Finn is currently the heavyweight single-handed dinghy for the Olympics, although this is due to end after the Tokyo Olympics.
Designed in 1949, it is now the longest standing of all the Olympic dinghies, and it continues to be a popular boat around the world. The class has produced many of the legends of Olympic (and indeed dinghy) sailing – names like Paul Elvstrom and Ben Ainslie will always be considered among the greatest dinghy sailors of all time, along with guys like Russell Coutts, John Bertrand and Iain Percy. All have proved themselves by winning medals (and in the cases of Elvstrom and Ainslie, multiple gold medals) in the Olympics.
Considered by many to be the most physical and most tactical of all single-handed dinghies, sailing the boat well is certainly a real test. The hull has changed very little since it was first designed, with most innovation coming in the form of new spars (first aluminium, now carbon fibre), and sails.
Videos for Finn Sailing
This video is superb. Some fantastic super slow-motion shots of tacking, gybing, pumping and hiking, all performed by Olympic campaigner Oli Twedell:
And if you’re a really serious sailor, there’s some tips on fitness from Olympic campaigner Andrew Mills here.
Ben Ainslie also took some time out before London 2012 to explain how downwind pumping works:
If you want to learn from the experts then this video is priceless – on board with the best in the world:
These four videos are absolutely fascinating. They are on-board videos from the same race – the Gold Cup Medal Race in 2013, and they offer the opportunity to compare the tacking, gybing, mark-rounding, and so on, of some of the best sailors in the world.
The winner of the event was Jorge Zarif, although he came ninth in the race featured.
The other three videos are linked below and feature (in finishing order for the event):
- Ed Wright (2nd overall, 3rd in the featured race)
- Zsombor Berecz (7th overall, 2nd in the featured race)
- Josh Junior (9th overall, 6th in the featured race)
Perth 2011 Finn Medal Race from Deniss Karpak on Vimeo.
Don’t know how useful this video is for learning technique, but it is one of my favourites because these boats are great to watch in a breeze:
The same goes for this video…but this one, with Finns in 50 knots of breeze, has rather less sailing and rather more capsizing.
Books for Finn Sailing
Specific for Finns
FINNatics: The History and Techniques of Finn Sailing by Robert Deaves
FINNtastic Games: The Finn Class at the London 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition by Robert Deaves
Photo FINNish – 60 Years of Finn Sailing by Robert Deaves
Close to the Wind by Ben Ainslie
General Books Useful for Finn Sailors
The Bestsellers
These three books will help any sailor improve in any class of boat.
Sailing Fitness
You need to be physically fit to do well – even just a little bit of all-round fitness can improve your results a lot. These books are all helpful in designing a program that works for you. My favourite is Sailing Fitness & Training by Michael Blackburn.
Psychology
Getting your head right can be as important as getting your technique right. These books will all help with this area, and the Eric Twiname book, Sail, Race and Win is possibly my all-time favourite book on how to improve your sailing
Books for Self-Coaching by Olympic Coach Jon Emmett
Jon Emmett coached Lijia Xu to an Olympic Gold Medal, and is a multiple World Champion himself. These well written books share the secrets of how to coach yourself and improve your sailing.
Sailing Technique and Performance Books by Frank Bethwaite
Frank Bethwaite is a bit of a legend – relentless in his pursuit to understand high performance race craft. His two bigger books (High Performance Sailing and Higher Performance Sailing) can be quite dense to read while Fast Handling Techniques is lighter and easier to read. All are hugely important.
…and finally, Three Absolute Classics
These three books are nailed-on classics – books that have helped generations of sailors and are still relevant today. Start to Win is a good, relatively basic book that will help get you to the front of the fleet; Winning in One Designs is widely regarded as essential reading for one-design sailors; and Advanced Racing Tactics is more in-depth, is a tougher read, but will help with a lot of in-race strategy.
Links for Finn Sailors
Class Information
The International Finn Association
- The British Finn Association site
- The New Zealand Finn Association site
- The North American Finn site for the USA and Canada
- The Argentinian Site (and an Argentinian Finn Blog)
- The Czech Republic Site
- The Danish site
- The Dutch Site
- The French site
- The German Site
- The Hungarian Site
- The Russian Site
- The Swedish site
Wikipedia page for the Finn
Boat Set-up, Boat Handling and Other Tips
The Finn Sailing Manual – some great information for all aspects of the class – just click through the ‘Finn Sailing Manual’ tab at the top of the page.
A really good piece on common injuries and fitness requirements
Blogs and Blog Posts
Earwigoagin on the Finn as a boat for big sailors
The Vital Statistics
Suggested sailor weight range: 80-110kg
- Hull Material GRP (classic boats wood)
- Year Designed: 1949
- Hull Length 4.5 metres
- Beam 1.5 metres
- Mainsail Area 10.2 square metres
- Hull Weight 107 kg
- Advertising Cat C
Who’s Who in Finns
Bjorn Allansson
Filippo Baldassari
John Bertrand
Daniel Birgmark
Brendan Casey
Christopher Cook
Jonas Høgh Christensen
Paul Elvstrom
Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic
Deniss Karpak
Thomas Le Breton
Jonathan Lobert
Andrew Mills
Ioannis Mitakis
Tapio Nirkko
Iain Percy
Pieter Jan Postma
Zach Railey
Giles Scott
Dan Slater
Rafael Trujillo
Tomas Vika
Gasper Vincec
Edward Wright
Vasilij Zbogar
Oli Twedell