Canadian and USA's Finn Gold Cup teams assembles in Denmark

by Event Media/Sail-World.com on 5 Jul 2009 Leading international Finn sailors, including a strong North American squad have been gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark, over the last few days ready for next week’s 2009 Finn Gold Cup. The world championship for the heavyweight men’s Olympic singlehanded dinghy runs from 3-11 July, out of Vallensbæk Sailing Club, some 17km southwest of the centre of the Danish capital.

While the Danish hosts have the largest entry in the Finn Gold Cup with nine sailors competing, they are closely followed by the Netherlands and, surprisingly, the USA with eight apiece. The total North American contingent with another three Canadian sailors lead by Olympian Chris Cook numbers eleven.

34 year old Cook, who sails out of the RCYC Toronto, finished fifth in the class in the 2008 Olympics and took bronze medal in the 2005 Finn Gold Cup.

Joing Cook are two 25 year old Canadian Finn sailors Adam Nicholson who also sails out of the same Toronto club while John Romanko represents RVYC.

US Sailing’s Olympic squad has been undergoing a metamorphosis recently and while four of their Finn sailors have been regularly competing in Europe this year, they are now up to their full compliment.

'We have been working really hard with the sailing team Alphagraphics on getting more members of the Finn team over to the World championships. It is fantastic for the US team,' says their leading light, Zach Railey, who picked up Finn silver last year at the Beijing Olympiad.

The Finn class in the US have been also running a development program and have bought their own boat. The recipient of this has been Laser turned Finn sailor Caleb Paine. Having freshly graduated from high school, he competed in his first European regatta at Kiel Week before coming to Copenhagen.

As to the venue, Railey says: 'It is fantastic. I sailed here when they had the Laser Europeans when I was just starting to get on to the European circuit. It has been a little while since I’ve been here, but Copenhagen, where I’m staying in the city, is fantastic.'

During the event Zach will receive moral support from his sister Paige, who is leading the US squad of Laser Radials for their European championship on the opposite side of Copenhagen, the week after the Finn Gold Cup.

Uber Olympian, Ben Ainslie, Finn gold medallist at the last two Olympic and winner of the Gold Cups on each of the four occasions he has competed in it since 2002, is taking a year out from the class and says he will return for next year’s Gold Cup.

However Skandia Team GBR are still fielding one of the strongest teams with six sailors, favourite being pretender to the Ainslie throne, Ed Wright. This year Wright has already won the Rolex Olympic Classes Regatta in Miami and the Delta Lloyd Regatta in Holland and with just one event still to go, is the clear class leader in the ISAF Sailing World Cup, ahead of Croatia’s Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic and Spain’s Rafa Trujillo.

This will be Wright’s fourth Finn Gold Cup and he will be gunning hard. 'I have won most other events on the calendar, but the Gold Cup is one that has evaded me for a while now,' he says. 'I came very close in Cascais [at the ISAF Sailing World Championship in 2007] and then I didn’t have such a great event last year. This year I am really hoping that I can put a consistent series together and I might be able to win it.'

It may be far from reliable, but the long range forecast is indicating a week of relatively light 5-10 knot winds for the Finn Gold Cup, with occasional rain probably hampering the sea breeze on some days.

In such conditions Wright rates Ivan Kljakovic Gaspic and the USA’s Zach Railey major threats. 'But everyone is sailing quite consistently through the wind ranges, so it is more about how people are sailing on the day.'

He believes of the 98 sailors from 30 nations taking part in the Finn Gold Cup, around 10 are capable of winning and special attention should be paid to leading Danish Finn sailor Jonas Høgh-Christensen and Sweden’s Daniel Birgmark, for whom these are local waters.

While the majority of Finn sailors decamped straight to Copenhagen after Kiel Week finished a week and a half ago, the British Finn squad benefitted from an additional two week long training camp there beforehand.

However this was in rather different conditions to those forecast for this coming week. 'There was a hell of a lot of breeze then,' states Wright. 'A couple of days were blown off and we didn’t stop hiking for the whole time, so it was very good!'

After a practice race on Sunday 5th July, the first two races of the 2009 Finn Gold Cup are to be held on Monday culminating in the medal race the following Saturday, 11th July.

Nationality	Sail Number	First Name	Family Name	Yacht Club	D.o.B
AUS	10	Rob	McMillan	WSC	24.11.65
AUS	235	Timothy	Castles	Freemantle SC	17.04.85
AUT	3	Florian	Raudaschl	UYC Wolfgangsee	23.05.78
BRA	5	Henry	Boening	Iate Club Rio de Janeiro	28.03.83
BRA	109	Jorge	Zarif	ICRJ/YCSA	30.09.92
BUL	24	Mihail	Kopanov	Port Burgas	27.04.65
CAN	1	John	Romanko	RVYC	15.12.86
CAN	7	Adam	Nicholson	RCYC	29.05.86
CAN	41	Christopher	Cook	RCYC	10.01.74
CRO	1	Milan	Vujasinovic	R.Y.C. Labud	14.03.80
CRO	25	Marin	Misura	Split	19.02.82
CRO	524	Ivan	Kljakovic Gaspic	Zenta	24.05.84
CZE	1	Michael	Maier	YCR Roudnice nad Labem	07.04.64
CZE	3	Rudolf	Lidarik	LS Brno	27.06.78
CZE	11	Patrik	Deutcher	YCR Roudnice nad Labem	29.08.91
CZE	52	Tomas	Vika	YC Cheb	03.08.88
DEN	2	Jonas	Høgh-Christensen	K.D.Y	21.05.81
DEN	3	Jørgen	Svendsen	KDY	18.05.64
DEN	6	Lars	Hall	Royal Danish Yacht Club	06.07.60
DEN	9	Thomas	Mørup-Petersen	Vallensbæk Sejlklub	25.11.70
DEN	46	Kaspar	Andresen	FSK	01.05.87
DEN	201	Nikolsi	Ratzlaff	Hornbæk Bådeklub	11.06.79
DEN	218	Jesper	Petersen	Solrød	26.11.59
DEN	231	Kenneth	Bøggild	Vallensbæk Sejlklub	02.06.68
DEN	258	Christian	Qvist	KDY	18.12.70
ESP	100	Rafael	Trujillo	CN La Linea	14.12.75
ESP	836	Alejandro	Muscat	CN L'Escala	04.04.88
EST	2	Deniss	Karpak	S4G Karpak Sailing Team	18.07.86
EST	7	Harles	Liiv	Tallinn Kalev	02.06.72
EST	11	Lauri	Väinsalu	ROPK/Tallinn	21.05.88
FIN	218	Tapio	Nirkko	EPS	14.08.84
FRA	112	Jonathan	Lobert	SNO Nantes	30.04.85
FRA	115	Thomas	Le Breton	SR Brest	05.02.82
GBR	41	Giles	Scott	WPNSA	23.06.87
GBR	88	Mark	Andrews	Largs	29.09.85
GBR	99	Henry	Bagnall	RCYC	22.04.87
GBR	111	Edward	Wright		13.10.77
GBR	631	Richard	Hart	Mengeham Rythe S.C.	01.03.39
GBR	634	Andrew	Mills	Queen Mary	17.12.85
GER	165	Dirk	Meid	SCLM	25.05.65
GER	174	Matthias	Bohn	Warnemünder Segel Club	02.06.74
GER	203	Hartmut	Duisberg	DHH-RG	08.06.66
GER	242	Peter	Corbett	Hamburger Segel Club	10.11.68
GER	262	Uwe	Barthel	Segler-Klub Dümmer e.V.	07.05.55
GRE	1	Ilas	Chatzipaulis	N.C.P.F.	28.05.49
GRE	3	Konstantinos	Gnafakis	Y.C. Amfitheas Athens	24.06.75
GRE	8	Alexandros	Dragoutsis	Sea Sports Club	21.05.79
GRE	71	Panagiotis	Davourlis	N.C.P.F.	29.04.60
HUN	6	Gaszton	Pal	BYC	31.10.83
HUN	8	Márton	Beliczay	ARSC	08.07.86
HUN	128	Peter	Haidekker	AYC	08.04.66
HUN	212	Richard	Hirschler	SÉP	31.08.92
HUN	728	Elemer	Haidekker	AYC	29.06.94
IND	11	Nachhatar	Johal	AYN	15.07.79
ITA	2	Marco	Buglielli	C.V. Roma	19.12.60
ITA	38	Claudio	Bosetti	Circolo Vela Torbole	13.03.58
ITA	97	Carlo	Recchi	Circolo Vela Torbole	09.08.90
ITA	101	Riccardo	Cordovani	Fraglia Vela Riva	27.11.83
ITA	117	Giorgio	Poggi	S.V.G. di F.	26.08.81
ITA	123	Filippo	Baldassari	Ancona Yacht Club	22.07.88
NED	11	Henk	de Jager	Het Witte Huis	18.02.49
NED	41	Karel	van Hellemond	KWVL HWH	12.03.73
NED	45	Dennis	de Ruiter	WV Randmeer	16.06.80
NED	64	Wietze	Zetzema	Waterland	22.07.83
NED	787	Nanno	Schuttrups	WSV Het Witte Huis	20.10.82
NED	839	Timo	Hagoort	ARZV	12.08.87
NED	842	Pieter Jan	Postma	KWS	10.01.82
NED	844	Gert	van der Heijden	DSWZ Broach	26.08.82
NOR	1	Peer	Moberg	KNS	14.02.71
NZL	1	Dan	Slater	MBSC	09.04.76
POL	7	Rafal	Szukiel	AZS UWM Olsztyn	05.11.76
POL	17	Piotr	Kula	BTZ Biskupiec	23.05.87
POR	5	Frederico	Melo	Clube Naval de Cascais	13.07.87
POR	310	Rodrigo	Quina	Associacao Desportiva de Oeiras	10.11.77
RUS	1	Alex	Selivanov	Krasnodar	19.09.87
RUS	9	Eduard	Skornyakov	Moscow Sailing School	16.10.80
RUS	11	Vecheslav	Sivenkov	Moscow Sailing School	01.07.91
RUS	57	Egor	Terpigorev	Moscow Region Sailing School	30.05.90
RUS	707	Egor	Larionov	Moscow Region Sailing School	04.05.89
SLO	5	Gasper	Vincec	JD FINN SLOVENIE	05.04.81
SUI	496	Thomas	Gautschi	Biel	05.06.63
SWE	1	Olof	Lundqvist	Malmö Segelsällskap	31.10.72
SWE	6	Björn	Allansson	GKSS	17.12.86
SWE	11	Daniel	Birgmark	GKSS	05.03.73
SWE	40	Sverker	Härd	UKF	09.11.62
TUR	7	Akif	Muslubas	Istanbul Yelken Kulubu	21.02.74
UKR	1	Oleksiy	Borysov	Fond	01.06.83
UKR	2	Illya	Yefremov	Fond	23.02.87
UKR	5	Andriy	Gusenko	SVSM Dnepropetrovsk	11.03.88
UKR	21	Anton	Sadchykov	Fond	23.03.89
USA	4	Zach	Railey	STFYC	09.05.84
USA	9	Ian	Cook	Eastern Yacht Club	21.01.88
USA	16	Conrad	Brown	California Yacht Club	14.12.66
USA	32	Charles	Heimler	Encinal YC	05.07.54
USA	55	Andrew	Casey	Team America	21.09.78
USA	123	Caleb	Paine	SWYC	15.11.90
USA	808	R. Phillip	Ramming	Newport Harbour Yacht Club	26.08.56
USA	1140	Bryan	Boyd	Annapolis Yacht Club	01.05.76