Buying a Secondhand Finn....
Buying a Secondhand Finn....
Author: Brian Porter
There are three makes of Finn which were generally reckoned to be fast but there were some exceptions. The Taylor Finn dominated in the 70's.
The Vanguard Finn in the 80's and the Devoti from the mid 90's to now. Other makes had supporters, current examples are the Pata and Lemieux, Mader and Roga in the 80's. Broadly speaking the difference between them all over time is they have got better upwind in waves and in stronger winds. I have a 1978 Vanguard largely sailed in Chichester Harbour where I can still beat the newer boats on occasions. I find it a definite step up from the Taylor I had before with much more balanced handling and appreciably better speed upwind when there is a chop. As a starting point, with a budget of 1-1.5 k or so a Vanguard would be your best bet. At the time they were the boat to have they were raced hard by the top guys for many years so some do look a bit rough but this shouldn't put you off. The suspicion at the time was they went quicker as the softened up, very different from other classes where the peak racing life is short, but, as a result, those with numbers around 500 got very well used through two Olympic campaigns or so and got to look pretty beaten up. If looks are important you can strike lucky with a glass boat and there are some beautiful wooden boats from Taylor and Warwick and composites from Lanavere.
A significant change of the boats in the 90's is that the position of the mast at deck level became unrestricted and Devoti and others started making this adjustable. This moves the rig forward and the balance, especially in a blow is much better. A few older boats have had this modification made. Devoti used to sell this section of deck and mast ring assembly which I fitted myself and think it was well worthwhile. If you find a Vanguard with it done then that would be a bonus.
The sail numbers are now around 650 in the UK. Each nation has it's own numbering, unlike the Laser I believe, with the largest number registered in Germany. There are older boats around with newer sail numbers due to boats being imported into this country or boats being registered late. Ask to see the certificate to be sure of build date.
Broadly speaking numbers are as follows but there are plenty of exceptions:-
- 1950's 1-66
- 1960's 67-330
- 1970's 331-487
- 1980's 488-531
- 1990's 532-573
- 2000's 574 on
