Sailing: Checking out the Finn –Splash!

MIT had a small sailing Pavilion on the Charles River Basin, just across Memorial Drive from the Earth Sciences Building and its Calder sculpture, the Sail.  Sometime around my Junior year I took up recreational sailing there.  The Pavilion offered several types of boats to sail as you progressed through the learning program.  A couple of my fraternity brothers were rated for the Tech dinghy, a simple single-sailed boat and rugged enough to survive in the hands of students in the “still-learning” category.

The program started with the basics of knots and terminology and progressed to various ratings for the dinghy, the Finn, and the Rhodes sloop.  I was making good progress to helmsman, which allowed me to take a Tech dinghy out, with or without friends, in just about any weather conditions when the pavilion was open.

But the most intriguing boat class was the Finn, an Olympic class single handed boat that really moves.  I could use it in light air, but the full Finn rating required a checkout in heavy weather.  That means white caps on the river.

I was at the Pavilion one early spring day with a nip in the air and a good breeze.  I hadn’t planned to use the Finn, but the conditions seemed right.  So, I approached the sailing master and asked if I could get a check for the full heavy-weather rating.  He gave me a long look, muttered something about amateurs who think they can handle it in this weather and then end up capsized and needing a rescue.  My heart sank, because I worried that he might be close to the truth, yet I stood and waited.  He looked me up and down, then reached for a sail and gave me a boat number.  “Go rig the boat and let me know when you’re ready.”  He would follow in a launch.

The winds were strong and gusty.  In the process of rigging the boat, I stalled, hoping things might ease a bit.  I was sure the winds were well over the threshold.  But it was only getting gustier, and I was, for better or worse, committed.  I let the Sailing Master know I was ready.  At least the boat was ready.  He said to launch and start across the basin.  He would follow in a few moments.

I slid the Finn off the dock, letting the stern blow left with the wind.  I tied off the boat to the dock for the final step of raising the sail, then got back out to untie the boat.   I stepped again into the starboard side, pushed the bow from the dock, and took my seat on the rail.  Now the Finn planes in strong wind.  It has a big sail, and the skipper’s weight is a critical part of the balance of forces.  That means hiking out with everything above the knees extended outward from the boat.  I had the hiking stick, which extends reach to the tiller, in my left hand, my feet under the hiking straps to keep me connected to the boat while stretched out, and the sheet, the main line to control the sail, in my right hand.  As the bow drifted out from the dock, I pulled in the sheet to fill the sail, and we were off.

The Finn seemed to lurch forward from the water.  In only seconds we were planing.  What exhilaration!  It took only a minute until we were nearly across the Basin.  The wind was strong and steady…until it just disappeared in a lull.

Panic!  The wind no longer blew strong against the sail to balance my weight hiked out over the water.  The boat tilted toward me and I scrambled by reflex to get back in the boat.  I pulled on both the hiking stick and the sheet, while trying to hoist myself with aid of the hiking straps across my feet.  Wrong reflex on the tiller.  The boat was still moving quickly.  As I pulled the tiller toward me, the boat turned away from me and the centrifugal force now caused the boat to tilt even more quickly toward me.  Pulling on the sheet pulled the boom past the center of the boat, where the tilt was bringing it down toward my head.  There’s not a lot of clearance under the boom when things are going right, and they weren’t going right at that moment.  Fortunately, I ducked just in time.  I was also fully expelled from the capsized boat, lying on its side in the water.

Darn, this is exactly what the sailing master had described.  I scrambled around to the centerboard on the bottom side of the boat.  The goal was to pull on the upside rail using the centerboard as leverage and to right the boat.  That’s how the theory works.  Only it didn’t work.  The Finn didn’t budge.  Dejected, I climbed onto the high side of the boat to await rescue.  I looked toward the Pavilion and saw the sailing master in his launch speeding in my direction.  What I didn’t see was the slow twist the boat had taken in the water, so the bow pointed more into the wind.  Now the Finn floats high so that the base of the mast to about a third of the way up lies above the water.  Well I’ll be darned, but that strong wind now became a friend, with perfect timing.  The wind got under the sail and began to lift it.  With some help from my weight leaning toward the centerboard, the boat rolled nicely upright just as the sailing master arrived.  I was back in the cockpit ready to go.  He complemented me on righting the boat, which apparently was a big plus, and said to take it downwind to drain the cockpit.  There’s a drain slot in the bottom that you can open.  The speed of the boat sucks the water right out.  There were a couple of jibes on the downwind, then I got the word to bring the boat back to the dock.

And with that, I had my full Finn heavy weather rating.

Epilogue

I knew at the time that MIT had national stature in intercollegiate sailing competition, with the most titles.  One of my fraternity brothers was a New England champion and later coached me and Ted Williams before an intramural regatta, which our house managed to win.

I also just learned that the Tech Dinghy was designed by an MIT Professor of Naval Architecture.  The Tech Dinghy was the original boat for intercollegiate sailing competition which started in 1936 at the Sailing Pavilion.  The Dinghy continues to serve to this day.

Back in the summer of 2000 I was in Boston for a business meeting on the Charles.  At the end of the meeting, I strolled along the bank to the Sailing Pavilion.  Only the sailing master was there, a new one.  He asked if he could help me.  I certainly looked out of place in coat and tie.  I told him I used to sail here, and he asked my name to see if he could find my old sailing card.  They were digitizing records but hadn’t gone that far back.  Sure enough, he found the original card…and asked if I’d like to take a boat out.  Unfortunately, there was little wind, and no time.  I was pleased to still be known and hear the offer.