ASB Finn- Post Olympic Update
by Dan Slater on 22 Oct 2008
The Team Pegasus 18fter Dan Slater
This boat is 210 tons and sails with a crew of 30-35 and as the Tactician it required lots of different things to think about than sailing on my own in the Finn. During the Worlds we had a great battle with Valsheda another J Class of similar vintage which had just come out of a major refit with new sails, mast, boom and rigging and we thought would be faster than us now.
However we beat them in every race and had some really close racing to win Classic division of the Maxi Worlds.
Since then I have been in Santa Cruz sailing with Pegasus Racing and over the last 15 days we have been focused on Finn Sailing as well as developing the 505s we even had a day sailing the 18ft Skiff. The Finn Team of Philippe Karn, Richard
Clark, David Gyles and myself sailed most nights in a build up to the US Nationals that were sailed this weekend in San Francisco.
The Nationals had 33 boats and held 8 races over 3 days. For me this was a great chance to do some Finn racing again and with Zach Riley who won the Silver medal at the Olympics this year and Richard Clark who has been in the top 3 in
three Finn World Championships to make the competition really tough.
Over the three days we had from 8-18 knots and we raced on the city front of the St Francis Yacht Club. Racing was really close and although the 3 of us dominated the racing it was mixed up in a few races as well. Overall I became the US
National Champion followed by Richard Clark and Zach Riley 3rd.
I am now heading back to NZ but have to make a huge thank you to Philippe and the team at Pegasus Racing for such a great three weeks of sailing.
On Friday I will be sailing in the Coastal Classic on Line 7 Marine our 9m Trimaran, which will be great fun with 230 entries this year. I just hope the forecasted NE of 20-28 knots doesn’t arrive.
Thanks for your support.
Dan
www.danslater-nz.com
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