Finn Class North American Championships 2014 - Day 2

by Rich Roberts on 18 May 2014 A fair breeze Saturday erased Greg Douglas' opening stumble of a day earlier and lifted the 23-year-old Canadian into first place in the Finn class North American championships at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club.

'No major missteps at the top mark,' Douglas said, referring to Friday's failure to round the offset mark at the first windward mark of the first race.

He recovered to finish ninth, and even that was expunged when throwouts kicked in after the fifth race Saturday, leaving him with a scoreline of one – one – one – two - two for seven points, two ahead of Caleb Paine, his American training partner, with as many as three races remaining Sunday.

The wind puffed up a bit from Friday's maximum of 4 1/2 knots to a south-southeast flutter of seven to eight knots Saturday.

'That little bit of extra pressure today was just enough for me to get the boat moving,' Douglas said.

Still, there were no whitecaps in sight but the forecast for Sunday was for the most popular Long Beach conditions: 15 knots from the southwest.

'That would be very pleasant and a lot of fun,' said Douglas, who at six - three and 217 pounds has the height and weight leverage to work a Finn.

So although ABYC's own Erik Lidecis moved up to third place in the 18-boat fleet by beating Douglas and Paine in Saturday's last race (one – two - three)' I beat (Douglas) by about a foot,' he said---his 20 points leave him a lot to make up, although at six - ten and 225, 15 knots of wind would help.

'That would be perfect,' Lidecis said. 'If there's 15 knots, I'll stay (in third).'

And when the wind builds past 10 knots, the Finn class usually lifts sailing's anti-pumping rule, noted by the race committee posting the 'Oscar' flag.

'When the Oscar flag goes up,' veteran Henry Sprague (currently fifth) noted, 'all hell breaks loose.'

It might be an interesting day.

The last day of racing east of Long Beach Harbor off Seal Beach is scheduled to start at noon, conditions permitting.

The Finn dinghy, designed by Rickard Sarby in 1949 and first sailed in the 1952 Olympic Games at Helsinki, Finland, has been raced in every Olympics since as the longest enduring Olympic class. The two-man Star class is gone from the Games but the Finns sail on as a singlehander for heavyweights, while smaller people sail Lasers.

The leaders (After five of nine races)

1. Greg Douglas, Royal Canadian YC, (9)-1-1-1-2-2, 7 points.
2. Caleb Paine, St. Francis YC, 1-2-(3)-2-1-3, 9.
3. Erik Lidecis, ABYC/Bahia Corinthian YC, (13)-8-2-3-6-1, 20.
4. Philip Toth, Mooloolaba YC, 5-3-5-5-5-(6), 23.
5 Henry Sprague, Long Beach/no club, 3-9-(11)-4-3-5, 24.

Complete Overall Results:

Rank	Fleet	SailNo	HelmName	Club	Nat	R1	R2	Total	Nett
1st	Finn	6	Caleb Paine	St. Francis YC	USA	1	2	3	3
2nd	Finn	USA 75	Philip Toth	MYC	USA	5	3	8	8
3rd	Finn	USA 741	Andy Kern		USA	2	7	9	9
4th	Finn	5	Greg Douglas	Royal Canadian YC	CAN	9	1	10	10
5th	Finn	USA 40	Chuck Rudinsky		USA	7	4	11	11
6th	Finn	69	Rob Hemming	Balboa YC	CAN	6	5	11	11
7th	Finn	74	Henry Sprague		USA	3	9	12	12
8th	Finn	USA 1214	Peter Connally	Newport Harbor YC	USA	11	6	17	17
9th	Finn	59	Mike Dorgan	San Diego YC	USA	4	14	18	18
10th	Finn	USA 505	Erik Lidecis	BCYC/ABYC	USA	13	8	21	21
11th	Finn	23	Jim Hunter		USA	8	13	21	21
12th	Finn	132	Jim Hecht	Mission Bay YC	USA	10	11	21	21
13th	Finn	USA 303	Joe Chinburg	Denver Sailing Assoc	USA	16	10	26	26
14th	Finn	401	Craig Johnson		USA	15	12	27	27
15th	Finn	USA 1066	Glenn Selvin	Alamitos Bay YC	USA	12	15	27	27
16th	Finn	USA 333	David Wilson	Ventura YC	USA	14	16	30	30
17th	Finn	66	Rich Wright	Mission Bay YC	USA	17	17	34	34
18th	Finn	100	Santiago Reyero	Mission Bay YC	USA	20 DNC	20 DNC	40	40
18th	Finn	1213	Andras Nady	St Francis YC	USA	20 DNC	20 DNC	40	40