The March 2014 edition of FINNFARE has been published.

Björn Allansson (SWE), the winner of the 2013 ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne, features on the cover of the March 2014 edition of FINNFARE, surfing through the Port Philip Bay chop on a particularly testing day last December. The latest issue of the International Finn Class magazine was published on March 21.

This first issue of 2014 brings together all the news and major results over the past four months including the first two events in the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Melbourne and Miami. The 'Opening Shot', on page 3, is of Oliver Tweddell (AUS), the new World No. 1, who placed second at both Melbourne and Miami.

The two main feature articles are interviews with two of the top current sailors in the class, both of whom put in excellent results in 2013. The first is with the 2013 Finn World Champion Jorge Zarif (BRA). He talks about his popular Finn Gold Cup win on the waters of Tallinn Bay in Estonia last August, coming so soon after he also won the Junior Finn World Championship, the Silver Cup, in July, making him the only person to hold both titles at the same time.

He said, "You always imagine yourself winning, but I knew it was super hard to happen. I never was top 10 in a regatta with everybody, but at my age, with good company, you can improve a lot in a short period of time. I was lucky that week but at the same time, five out of seven races in the top 10 is not just lucky; we worked a lot all year."

He put his consistency down to training in the right conditions, "I started to sail in a lake in Sao Paulo, with similar conditions, so I was feeling very comfortable. The speed was also good but it wasn't the most important thing that week."

The second interveiw is with Zsombor Berecz (HUN) who first stepped into the Finn in 2012 after getting too big for the Laser after the 2012 Olympics. He placed seventh at the 2013 Finn Gold Cup and is one of the rising stars of the class, and one of the biggest success stories coming out of the Dinghy Academy in Valencia.

"I stopped sailing Laser straight after the Olympics. I was simply too big for the Laser and the diet was killing me. I had four per cent body fat and I was still on the limit with 83-84 kg. I felt I had unfinished business with Olympics; that is why I moved to the Finn."

About the Dinghy Academy he said, "I learned everything about Finn sailing here. We have a very strong team, and we are really pushing ourselves to the limit all the time during training. The Finn makes you an 'all-round sailor'. I understand much more about dinghies than ever before."

On the class he revealed, "I liked it from the first second. The people are much more open than I expected, and it is really a big family."

Contents in this issue also include:

- Round up of the ISAF Sailing World Cup after Melbourne and Miami

- Full report from the Semaine Internationale de Cannes, with some great photos, by Francois Richard, which was won by Jonathan Lobert

- Update on the Finn Class development programme (FIDeS) with details on the Dinghy Academy and boat building projects in Brazil and South Africa.

- Rule changes

- Carl Eichenlaub's Cadenza - a anecdotal tribute to the American boatbuilder and shipwright, by Gus Miller

- National reports and results from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and USA.

You can read the new edition below, online here or download it from the class website here.

 

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