Finn World Champ Whaling on it in Big Breeze

I just wrote that the 12 Foot Skiff was the hardest dinghy to sail in the World... but the Finn, ahh! the Finn. Watching the Olympians race this cranky, old, singlehander, big sail with long boom, in a big breeze, you just can't help to marvel at the skill, the physicality, the training to do this in close to thirty knots of breeze. Swede Max Salminen performing for the back deck cam at the 2018 Finn Europeans.



This isn't the first time I've featured Finn videos on Earwigoagin (not by a long shot):

• Grunt Reaching
• Finn Pumping
• The Merry Finnster
• Windy Finn Training
• Finn Gybe Mark
• 2012 Medal Race
• Finn vs. Laser Carving

Finn Dinghy Grunt Reaching

I've been featuring lots of videos about how to do it wrong - time to get back to the Olympic sailors doing it right - in this case Finn sailor Alejandro Foglia of Uruguay.

A couple of observations:

• You know it's really honking when a Finn sailor isn't pumping the main.
• The Finn is a heavy singlehander - 107 kg hull weight - but despite the weight this if full on, balls-to-the-wall reaching.

Tillerman over at Propercourse just recently featured a video of the massive American centerboard design Flying Scot planing. (There is a true sense of unleashed power when you get some of these heavy designs up and going; I have some fond memories of some great reaches on a American Lightning dinghy (318 kg.) under spinnaker and also the Y-Flyer scow (227 kg.).

Seen at the 2015 Annapolis Sailboat Show: The Melges 14

Melges Performance Sailboats introduced their Melges 14 singlehander at this years Annapolis Sailboat Show. The 14 is one of the new generation hiking singlehanders; a racier, speedier alternative to the Laser and, at the Annapolis show, the Melges 14 was on display only six meters apart from one of the first entrants in this market segment, the RS Aero.

Visually the Melges 14 looks bigger than the RS Aero and the tale of the tape shows that it is bigger than the RS Aero. The Melges 14 is longer at 4 meters and wider at 1.57 meters. Given the American penchant for going bigger in everything, this may not be a bad marketing move for U.S. sales. The long, flat cockpit floor looks quite spacious compared to the narrow RS Aero cockpit and the tiny cockpit of the Laser. (If, in buying a faster singlehander with carbon rig and mylar sails, one of your odd requirements is also a design where you can daysail with your kids stuffed here and there - the Melges 14 is the one for you.)

A wider beam allows more hiking power so it is not surprising that in comparing sail areas between the Melges 14 and the RS Aero, the Melges 14 again comes out bigger. The Melges 14 big rig is 9.1 meters vs the RS Aero 8.9 meters and, in the mid-range rig, the Melges 14 is 7.8 vs the RS Aero 7.4. Usually more horsepower may give better light wind performance but I haven't yet seen any side by side performance comparisons published.

The ultra-lightweight RS Aero hull comes in at whopping 25 kg less than the Melges 14 which, at 54 kg. is lighter than the Laser by about 5 kg. One of the benefits of the smaller hull of the RS Aero is less surface area which translates into a lighter hull. The Melges salesman countered as he made the pitch for the heavier Melges 14 hull. "How light can you go before sacrificing durabiltiy?"

The RS Aero came out early in this market (not quite two years ago), is being marketed agressively and the factory in England is pumping a goodly number out every month. In contrast, the Melges 14 appears a little late. I asked the Melges salesman about this and being a good salesman, he remained nonplussed. Admitting there is "quite a bit of competition" in the new singlehanders, he pointed out that Melges has already built 40 of the 14's and they expected that the existing customer base of Melges products (from the 20, 24, 32, the myriad Melges scows) would initially provide a steady stream of buyers for the 14.

There you have it. The Melges 14 is a bigger, heavier (though lighter than the Laser), more powerful (with a very roomy cockpit!) entry in the hiking singlehander marketplace. I have no idea how it compares on the water with the RS Aero or the D Zero (which has yet to put in an appearance in North America  - Correction, there are three in North America - see bottom of post.). Price for a Melges 14? It seems to be moving target but somewhere around 9K U.S.

Also check out the Tillerman blog post on the Melges 14.

The Melges 14 has a mylar sail on a carbon mast and boom. (This is different from the RS Aero which has remained with the tried and true dacron sailcloth.). The Melges 14 also is round-bilged but one thing you can't do very easily at a boat show is turn the dinghy over and inspect the hull - so I can't comment on the hull shape.

This photo taken from a more bow-on angle definitely shows the very distinctive straight gunwhale line (seen also on the RS Aero - this provides flare at the gunhwale and more hiking power) starting just forward of the daggerboard case.

The wide flat cockpit and more beam means there are two hiking straps instead of the usual center one. The Melges 14 uses the typical Laser split mainsheet rig with a transom bridle. I forgot to ask the salesman how you controlled athwartship boom placement as there doesn't seem to be any control lines for the aft bridle, just a stopper ball on each side. Boom vang control is at the mast, the other cleats are for the cunningham and outhaul.

The mainsheet turning block uses a a nifty hose to hold it upright (versus those metal springs). The Melges 14 has a small raised shelf just forward of the daggerboard trunk, ending some 100-200 mm aft of the mast - probably a tricky engineering tweak to provide structural support to both the front of the daggerboard trunk and the mast. (I can see an aftermarket storage turtle being designed to fit this shelf - perfect for water bottles, spray jackets, sandwiches.) The cockpit also has the comfy non-skid foam that the SUP crowd invented.

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My other Melges 14 posts:

• Melges 14 - Vaporware?
• Melges Performance Sailing Replies.
• Other big guy singlehanders.

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Over at the Sailing Anarchy thread on the Melges 14, user Woodman is of the opinion the Melges 14 is similar to the English Supernova singlehander, which is considered a big-guy singlehander.

Also on the Sailing Anarchy thread, user Jeffers corrects me when I say there are no D-Zero's in North America. There are three D-Zero's now in North America.

Drone Video of Supernova Nationals

This video covers this summer's Supernova National Championship and is one of the better sailing dinghy drone videos now flooding the Internet. Though the video is a little bit long for my taste (and the music sometime jarring to my old ears), it is a high quality production by Limitless Image Aerial Photography. The Supernova is an English hiking singlehander, one of a plethora of singlehanded dinghies thriving in the English market. It is considered a big guy singlehander sporting a full battened rig on a stayed mast.

The Supernova Facebook page can be found here.

Of a tactical note: Despite the huge onus the new rules put on coming in on port tack at the weather mark, it seems a lot of sailors still do it.

Re the Melges 14: Melges Perfornance Replies

When you tweak a company just a little - like I did in the post Melges 14 Vaporware?, it is only fair to allow the company to reply. So I emailed Melges Performance and Andy Burdick replied that they are indeed producing the Melges 14:

"We were early on our showcasing of the Melges 14 at the Chicago Strictly Sail Show. We have had such a response on the boat though that we felt as though we need a boat on display for people to see. The response was fantastic. After over 2 years of testing, tuning we feel like the Melges 14 is a great boat for one-design sailors but also for people that just want to go out and enjoy the sport of sailing. The Melges 14 is fast, modern, well built and has the ability to take a child or friend with you for a sail. Exposing people to the sport we love. Melges is excited about the future of the Melges 14. Excited for singlehanded one-design sailors and excited for the aspiring sailors that want to just go out and have fun.

Since January we have been building and distributing new Melges 14's. We have a container of boats headed to Europe soon, we had our first boat go to California yesterday. Boats are being sprinkled around the county with anticipation of further excitement.

We have been pretty "nose down" here in our boat production due to the popularity of our other one-design classes. We build 10 one-design classes now. Thus, through the winter and spring we have been working hard at getting our boats built and complete for spring deliveries.

Once we free up the current build schedules we will be more mainstream with the pushing and marketing of the boat. This is coming soon, real soon!"

There you have it. You can order a Melges 14 at this very moment. Melges Performance will build it. For the present it looks like they are depending on those "early adopters" to market the Melges 14 with Melges putting their corporate clout into more concentrated advertising and class organization of the Melges 14 later in the year, after they get through the busy spring boat building season.

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On a slightly different note, but still involving Melges Performance, I realized two days after making this comment in my post about Retro Singlehanders:

"I must admit the North American market is an anomaly here with not a lot of singlehanded classes under the Laser - still king by a long-shot-, and the Sunfish - a solid runner-up, The other singlehanded classes in North America - like my Classic Moth - are mustering small numbers."

- that I had got it wrong. The retro MC Scow, has slowly but surely - mostly under the radar - become a national singlehander class in the U.S.. Mea Culpa. This seems as good a time as any to correct the error.

To most of the world, the MC Scow, at a length of 4.9 meters, a weight of 190 kg., and a sail area of 135 sq. ft. is a big hulking SUV of a singlehander (some may question whether we could correctly identify the MC Scow as a singlehander as you are allowed to take a hiking crew when the breeze is up). Nonetheless, it has become very popular in the U.S. with fleets springing up well outside the normal Midwest scow territory. My good friend, Bob Blomquist, is now racing one out of Sarasota, Florida. Following is another well done video promo for the Melges MC scow (looks to be done by the same guy who did the Melges 14 video).



The Melges MC from Nick Bowers on Vimeo.

Header Photo: Sabre Dinghy and the Return of the Retro Singlehanders

The previous header photo is of Aussie Matt Kiely sailing the Australian singlehander Sabre class dinghy. The photo was lifted from the South Gippsland Y.C.Facebook page.

Probably the major trend in dinghy racing over the last 30 or so years has been the growth of singlehanded racing at the expense of doublehanded or triplehanded classes. And the trend since the millenium has been the explosive comeback of  what I call the retro hiking singlehanders; those other singlehanded classes designed before, or around the date of the introduction of the Laser (1969). For the most part, these classes are not international (excepting the OK Dinghy and Europe Dinghy); they are popular country-by-country or region, and they attract fleets of thirty, forty or more boats at major championships. They have a builder or two turning out modern hulls, some have carbon masts, many have aluminum. They seem to fill a need in the marketplace that the Laser does not.

I have compiled a list of retro singlehanders. I have excluded the Olympic Finn - 1949 (which has a huge Masters scene) and singlehanders with hiking assists (trapeze, sliding seat). Feel free to add your thoughts about this list in the comments section. (Before the Sunfish sailors jump all over me for excluding the Sunfish from the list - let me state the Sunfish has maintained high levels of popularity in parts of North America and parts of South America for many, many years - I don't see a comeback in popularity - they just maintained it.):

• Solo (U.K.) - 1956 - aluminum mast, stayed rig, full battens
• OK Dinghy (Den.) - 1957 - carbon mast, unstayed rig, short battens
• Streaker (U,K.) - 1975 - aluminum mast, stayed rig, short battens
• Phantom (U.K.) - 1971 - carbon mast, stayed rig, short battens
• Lightning 368 (U.K.) - 1977 - carbon mast, unstayed rig, short battens
• Sabre (Aus.) - 1974 - aluminum mast, stayed rig, full battens
• Impulse (Aus.) -1975 - aluminum mast, stayed rig, full battens
• O-Jolle (Ger.) - 1933 - aluminum mast, stayed rig, short battens
• Larken-Klasse (Ned.,Ger.) - 1920's - wood mast, stayed rig, full battens 
• Europe Dinghy (Moth) - 1960 - carbon mast, unstayed rig, short battens
• Zephyr (NZ) - 1956 - aluminum mast, stayed, full battens

Despite the recent introduction of the "modern" RS Aero, or Devoti D-Zero, with lightweight hulls, mylar sails (correction - the Aero has dacron sails), carbon rigs, it seems the singlehanded market is marching in the other direction. (I must admit the North American market is an anomaly here with not a lot of singlehanded classes under the Laser - still king by a long-shot-, and the Sunfish - a solid runner-up, The other singlehanded classes in North America - like my Classic Moth - are mustering small numbers...Oops! I forgot about the MC scow, now very popular in the U.S.)

The Merry Finnster

I noticed that Finn videos were popular in the bloggosphere a couple of months ago. Being somewhat late in following trends, I offer up one of my favorite Finn videos, this of Olympic sailing's free spirit, Estonian Deniss Karpak. Sailing in Lake Garda, on a day that appears to be solely devoted to training on downwind technique (lucky dogs those Olympians, to spend the day planing to and fro), our hero pauses to pick some flowers to decorate his centerboard before resuming the workout.


Daybreak: Garda Adventures from Deniss Karpak on Vimeo.

Mind Meld: Laser/Frankenboat and the GO 4.8

Call it kismet but when I wrote the previous post about a fellow who turned a Laser into a high-freeboard, double bottom singlehander, what do I come across on the Net-Toob's but an Australian production dinghy that is a high-freeboard, double bottom -- singlehander, sloop rigged -- your choice. About the same length as the Laser to boot. Enter the GO 4.8 which seems to be going down the same road as our Franken designer.

Slab sided bow with high freeboard of the GO 4.8.

Flat transom, high side decks of the GO 4.8. Interesting that he has incorporated transom sheeting for this design (and it looks like a centerboard instead of a daggerboard).

And not only that! The designer has developed a wood kit so that home builders can put together a GO 4.8.

More info on the GO 4.8 can be found here.

Run Up to the Weymouth Olympics; Wind or No Wind?

Certainly we can expect breeze for the Weymouth Olympic Regatta, or can we? According to WaPo (local acronym for the Washington Post newspaper), England has been experiencing a monsoon like summer (unlike the U.S.A Mid-Atlantic where we have been very dry) and also a good amount of breeze. But big regattas are notorious for not going to form. So the English, being English, are leaving nothing to chance and the "wind gatherers" are calling on the wind gods as has been documented in this video.

"It's like nothing I expected at all!"

Battle for the Winds - a preview from Cirque Bijou on Vimeo.

Hopefully we'll get to see some racing in the Weymouth Olympics in the same breeze that this Finnish Finn sailor is training in (these elite athletes make it seem so easy - I remember when yachting journalists back in the 1970's described jibing a Finn in this much breeze was one of the most feared maneuvers in small boat racing. Click on this link to see my other Finn jibing video).

Run Up to the Weymouth Olympics: The Medal Race

I think it was the last Olympics where they introduced the medal race for sailing; the last race counts double points and is only open to the top ten in the standings. Obviously designed for TV, I like the idea of the medal race. At times it has made for some real drama.

At this past year's Olympic Worlds in Perth, Australia, it looked like the medal races were held in the harbor entrance. At any minute, I half expected a 50 foot sport fisherman to barrel through the course full speed. Here is the video of the Finn class medal race (first round only).



And who can forget the 49'er medal race at the 2008 Quingdao Olympics. The Danish team, who led in the standings, broke their mast before the start, raced back to shore, borrowed the Croatian 49'er, made it to the starting line just in time to make it an official start, finished in some wild and woolly conditions, and survived several days of hearings to be declared the Gold Medalists.

Add to that race was the absolute carnage on the course (he's up, he's down, he's up again) as the World's elite 49'er sailors couldn't make it all the way downwind without going over.

Video with German?? (see note below) commentators. (The word, "Krashboombang", fits this race to a tee.)

A comment was left that this is not German - which could very well be - as I demonstrate a sad trait of most Yanks, uno language skills and an appalling lack of any useful knowledge of any other languages. Apologies if I have this completely wrong - I could guess again and say Danish  - but it would still be a guess.

US Olympic Team Announced

I see the American Olympic Sailing Team for the Weymouth Olympic Games this summer has been announced after the results of the Perth ISAF regatta. (Correction from Tillerman; the US Women's Match Racing team is still to be selected...) All this is somewhat confusing to a old cuss like me who remembers the winner-take-all Olympic Trials being held in the U.S over a one or two week period, but professional sailing moves forward increasingly into their own universe. Anyway, congrats to the winners who will represent the red, white, and blue this summer.

To commemorate our Olympians, I have a medley of videos featuring three Olympic dinghy classes; the 49er, the 470 and the Finn.

First video features the crashes and spills that is the hallmark of sailing a 49er. I also like the Ompah music.......



The second video features the suitably blond, congenial Swedish women's 470 skipper giving a video tour of the 470 dinghy.


Perth 2011 World Championships Live VT from Alex Palmer on Vimeo.

And for our Finn video we feature the air rowing introduced to Finn racing over the last couple of years, as explained by the newly crowned John McEnroe of sailing (English Olympic champion Ben Ainslie who had a dust-up with a photographer at the Perth regatta). I agree with Ben on this one, freeing up the pumping rules for the Finn certainly does make a physical dinghy even more physical - which fits the Olympic ideal.

Finn Followup

I'm a sucker for sailing videos where Olympic sailing team members, at the top of their game, make very difficult sailing maneuvers look easy. I posted a video not long ago featuring a 49er tacking duel.

Here's a video of a gybe mark of a very breezy race of the 2009 Finn Gold Cup with the two leaders nonchalantly gybing (Finns have very long booms that love to dig into the briny and upset the whole program with any slight misstep from the skipper).

Just a walk in the park (yeah, right!)............

Another Big Guy Singlehander; The Finn Dinghy

On one of my posts about the Big Guy singlehander, "Noodle" intimated in a comment that I was ignoring the Finn dinghy; the Finn dinghy being the most popular of the big guy singlehanders. How can you argue when 283 Finns showed up for the 2011 Worlds Master Championship in Punta Ala Italy!

That being said, how are these oldsters with their creaky knees and aching backs able to get under such a low boom. I owned and raced a Finn (a glass Newport that had a wood deck..... Rob Andre did the conversion) for a short while when I was in my 20's. On my first sail, my elbow got a right smart whack when I left it too high in a jibe. On tacks, you really did have to fold yourself on the floor to get under the boom. After finishing down the fleet at the U.S Nationals in Sayville NY, I realized that I was too small for the boat and, quite frankly, the Laser seemed more lively offwind.

But, there is not a better singlehander in light air than the Finn. The large cockpit makes for pleasant light air lounging compared to the contortions of the poor Laser sailor draped over the daggerboard trunk. The large sail area and finer hull shape means the Finn doesn't need much air to tramp along quite nicely in soft breezes. The Finn would be my top choice if I was just day sailing on a lake in light air (I would have to keep the Finn on the beach for the Finn is not a light dinghy to launch and retrieve). The question is, can you find one?.... demand is such that there are not too many used Finns popping up.

Here's a great video of the Geezer Finn fleet racing out of Encinal YC, California, tucked up into Oakland Inner Harbor and well away from the big breezes of San Francisco Bay. They all seem quite enamored of the Finn and not at all fazed over dealing with such a low boom..........

Northern California Finn Club Regatta at EYC from Moon Rabbit Studios on Vimeo.

Dinghy Design; Big Guy Singlehander Update

A reader response to my first post about a hiking singlehander for a very big guy pointed out my lack of knowledge in regards to the Phantom dinghy, which, at second look, is an eminently sensible choice for a big guys singlehander.

1. The Phantom can be home built, in fact was originally designed to be homebuilt. Plans are available though a quick search doesn't turn up an address to get them (strangely, even the class website doesn't seem to have an address).
2. The ideal helm weight for the Phantom is about 210 lbs (95 kg) with reader "Rudderman" commenting,

   "I am also 6ft5 and over 18 stone and have absolutely no problems sailing a home built wooden Phantom which I took to runner up position in the UK Nationals. As I recall there are a couple of Phants being built in the US from plans provided by the Designer's daughter"

3. Longer at 4.42 meters, wider at 1.64 meters, the same hull weight as a Laser, and over 105 sq. feet (9.75 meters) of sail area, the Phantom must be a very lively sail. 
4. Class website is linked here .
5. Joe over at the blog "Horses Mouth" did a fantastic post on the Phantom which can be viewed over here .

Some pics I stole from the class website showing the developed ply hull shape (the hull looks very similar to the Classic Moth Shelly design) .............





A good video of a Phantom sailor blasting back and forth, forth and back, hitting over 14 knots - great fun.

Dinghy Design; A Singlehander for a Really Big Guy

I got this in the inbox about a week or so ago.........

"I got in contact with Bill about the Classic Moth he built based on your station molds. I too am looking to build my own sailing boat, with looking to start on a smaller project first (~200 hours), and fell in love with the Classic Moth design, especially the curved tanks in the cockpit.

I'm 6'5" and around 260 pounds (118 kg) so not sure if the boat would sail ok with me in it! Do you have any suggestions on an appropriate design and where I may be able to get the plans from?"

C

And my reply.............

"Your size will make it hard to make it work in a Classic Moth. You need a design with some displacement and nothing like some extra length to give you that.

There's no stock design in a 14 to 15' length, easy to build, that immediately comes to mind. One of Chesapeake's Light Craft's multi-use sailboats/rowing dinghies might do the trick.

I probably could draw something up that would fit, but boat design is a hobby and I have no time for it right now. I would think that something like the US1 sailboat class (no longer built) that was a singlehander based on the Windmill hull would fit you nicely."

R

An interesting design problem as "C" is looking for a racy singlehander, easy to build and a design that would float a guy the supersize of an American football player.

There are singlehander classes that have been designed for the larger sailor; the Finn Olympic dinghy, Bruce Farr's MegaByte, and from England, the Phantom dinghy and the SuperNova. But all these classes are production glass hulls and still not big enough to fit Mr. "C".

The US1 mentioned in my reply was an American class, built by Advance Sailboats. The Internet says 450 were built out of fiberglass and a quick Google shows one or two for sale even as I write this post. Advance took the simple V-chine, easy to build Windmill hull, cut some freeboard off the hull, added some rolled tanks and a large (90 sq. ft) main. Since the Windmill was sized to carry two adults (at say 300 lbs combined), it would be safe to say that the US1 could probably handle one at 260 lbs. And, since the Windmill class was designed for homebuilding in ply, an enterprising boat builder could replicate the US1 concept in plywood.

The US1 class is no longer active. The best webpage on the US1 that I came across was an ad selling a US1 ...even had a movie.

A picture of the US1 I stole from the ad......



What the US1 doesn't completely solve for a big guy is lateral stability. When you weigh 260 lbs (118kg) small dinghies have a tendency to lean radically into the skipper, particularly when the wind eases up. A big scow, say the MC scow, with less of a tendency to roll around might be a more pleasant sail for Mr. "C".

Here's a picture of the slightly larger C-scow........



In Internet browsing for this post, I also discovered a California builder who is supplying part build Windmill hulls .