J.P. Morgan Asset Managment FinN Festival 2012. Falmouth

13 - 18 May 2012 Royal Cornwall Yacht Club

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Organising authority RCYC Events Ltd

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Finn Gold Cup

Finn nationals

About

History of the Finn Gold Cup

The Finn Gold Cup was presented to the International Finn Association (IFA) by the late F. G. Mitchell of the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, Great Britain in 1956 and became the World Championship Trophy for the Finn Class. The late Joerg Bruder of Brazil won the cup three times. In 1973 while en route to defend his title in France, he was killed in an airplane accident and the original cup, which was in his custody at the time, was lost. Somms Marine of France presented a replica of the original cup to the Finn Class in 1975 which is used today to represent the highest honour in single-handed dinghy racing.

The Gold Cup has played an important part of the history of the Finn Class. The foundation of the IFA on August 23, 1956 in Loosdrecht Holland was strongly influenced by the first Gold Cup held earlier that year in Burnham-on-Crouch in England. From there on the Annual General Meeting of the IFA was generally at the time and place of the Gold Cup. Consequently the sporting and administrative highlight of each year occurs at the Gold Cups.

Over the years there have been various attempts to control the number of competitors in the Gold Cup to prevent the fleet becoming too difficult to manage. The current method which will apply in 2012 allocates entries to nations on a sliding scale depending on the number of dues paid by the national association representing the number of boats in the national fleet. National associations run qualifying events to rank their sailors against the national entries quota. Additional entries are allocated to cover one “rookie” sailor per nation who has never sailed in a Gold Cup before, the 10 top finishers in the previous Gold Cup, the National Finn Secretaries, the former and present members of the IFA Executive Committee, and the three medallists of the previous Olympics.

The Gold Cup, together with the European Championships, became the best indicator for any new technical development of the Finn Class. In the first 5 Gold Cups from 1956 to l960 only wooden boats were allowed. When GRP was permitted in 1961 and plastic boats ended up 1st, 2nd and 3rd, the Class entered a period of crisis. Many owners of older wooden boats were afraid that their equipment had been totally outmoded. One year later Arne Akerson won the 1962 event with a boat which Rickard Sarby found to behave very different from an ordinary Finn dinghy in waves. The measurement committee found several kilos of hidden lead in that magic boat, a fact which raised further objections against plastic boats. It was felt that it was too easy to cheat in GRP.

However, in 1964 Hubert Raudaschl won the Gold Cup in his home-made wooden boat and turned backward the wheel of Finn development for almost a decade. After two years of experimenting with his own GRP development, Willy Kuhweide bought back his old wooden Finn and won the Gold Cup twice. Following on the heels of Raudaschi and Kuhweide, the late Jorg Bruder also used wooden hulls to demonstrate the qualities of this traditional material. In the mid-seventies GRP hulls with soft wooden decks proved to be most successful and from the late seventies on the full GRP hulls were leading in the Gold Cups, dominated finally by Vanguard.

In regard with masts, development was less confusing. Traditional wooden masts were outmoded by special wooden Bruder spars by 1969. In that same year Jack Knights showed up with an aluminium spar at the Gold Cup in Bermuda for the first time. In 1972 Jorg Bruder himself won the Gold Cup with his own aluminium mast. From then on only aluminium masts were used by the winners of the Gold Cup, and Needlespar masts gained a complete domination of the Finn market, until the advent of carbon fibre.

In regard with sails, up to 1959 only cotton was allowed. Thereafter Dacron was used exclusively up to 1984. In the late sixties Raudaschl sails dominated the Finn events in combination with Bruder masts. In the late seventies / early eighties North sails gained a similar dominance. Current sails are predominantly Kevlar with carbon reinforcement, manufactured by laying material over a solid 3D mould.

Outstanding individuals in the history of the Gold Cup are:

  • Joerg Bruder of Brazil won the Cup three times consecutively in 1970/1971/1972 and was second in 1969
  • Willy Kuhweide of FRG three times in 1963/1966/1967
  • Lasse Hjortnaes three times in 1982/1984/1985
  • Andre Nelis of Belgium won the Cup twice in 1956/1961, was second three times in 1958/1959/1960, and third twice in 1957/1962, thus he finished among the top three on seven occasions.
  • However all of this has been overshadowed in recent years when Ben Ainslie won the Gold Cup four years in succession (2002, 2003, 2004 2005) and again in 2008.