The Finnish Sportsboats Association
Some Finnish people got tired in that. Years of sailing with slowish keelboats made dreams of something better. At plaanaa forums these people began dreaming about faster boats and “real” racing – we were talking about sportsboats. The owner of plaanaa.com had a vision – we need that in Finland. Agitation began, first carefully. There was pretty soon a bunch of people who got dead serious about it. Discussion and interest woke. Some owned a sportboat already, some just shared the thought, for example me. Me and my brother Timo owned a 28ft racer/cruiser at that time, which was pretty nice – but not nice and especially not fast enough. It was time to sell it…At that point Finland had only some sportboats and the Melges 24 was the only sportboats class who did OD in Finland, with about 10+- boats in every ranking race. No Finnish Championships – not enough boats (20 required). The very first Beneteau 25, the “Peto Jr” was bought earlier and imported to Finland. There was also boats like UFO 28 + some older and slower constructions. There was only one race where sportboats could race as a class – handicap race called “Päijännepurjehdus” of about 65 miles distance race. A vision began to grow slowly. The winter came and season 2005 was ending. Discussion forum of plaanaa.com was getting more and more popular, discussion run over the internet to SA forums too – and it grew more and more. Plaanaa.com slowly began taking discussion away from other forums and it got more popular – there was something new in it every day. At the same time Finnish sailing magazines were writing stories about team Peto Jr and the boat Beneteau 25 – more people got interested and came over. As the evenings got darker in Finland and the lakes and sea got frozen, the more people came over to plaanaa.com. The long and dark nights gave good time for dreaming of better future.
Two very enthusiastic guys began planning on whole new class around the idea of extremely fast, challenging and very affordable boats, at the same time other plans were moving on. The first of October year 2005 bunch of people gathered in Helsinki and decision about founding Finnish Sportboats Association was made. Temporary board began investigating all legal details and other things – it actually takes a lot to find a new association in Finland. At the same time those two class-founders and newly founded board members were emailing to USA, to Finnish Maritime Administration, Customs, the ISAF, Melges Boatworks, posting in SA, emailing here and there etc etc. Those guys wanted to import old E Scows from USA to Finland. Because of tight CE -regulations it sure was not easy – but finally, thanks to Melges Boatworks and Andy Burdick it came possible and buying those vintage Scows could begin. Those boats got lots of interest and the whole discussion and plans got more fire. At the same time first new teams appeared with Beneteau (Platu) 25’s. Then another pair of semi-grazy guys imported a Henderson 30 from Trinidad! “Papat” as we call them, (means “older guys or grandfathers”), because they actually are in their fifties! That’s something, and darn good sailors too. Something was sure going on…and interest grew more.
In summer we organized test sailings with sportboats, participated races and organized test sailings there, made more noise and more articles – plaanaa.com doubled visitors month after month. People began selling their caravan boats and showed interest in buying sportboats. The time was sure right. Temporary board worked hard and sent tons of emails, called around and got more interested people involved. In races sportboats made good results and showed how fast they can be (not in handicaps – so what?) and made the whole thing look good. We had tons of fun. Some teams were racing abroad and reported from there…again curious people came… Finally. Here we are. We have a nice fleet of E Scows, Platu 25’s, Melges 24’s and every fleet is growing. We even have some older designs activated, for example Banner 23 Racers and we expect OD-class around those boats too. We have a company who is importing boats for us and helping in there and stuff like that. We will have a nice sponsor for season 2007, more articles, more TV-time etc. New boats are coming all the time and next summer will be our first real season for this. During the winter there will be more teams, more boats, more noise. We can do races, where will be dozens of sportboats in starting line and make more noise about it. Things look good. The media has taken us well. Fast boats and good partys are interesting details for younger sailors and we expect more and more people to join us. We are planning cooperation with all fast-boat-associations, like multihulls and for example 505-dinghies. The key will be OD, but all are welcome to race with us – we can do handicap as well. If it is a sportboat – just do it. Or multihull like Tornado. Or a dinghy like 505. Fast is fun. Handicap racing is always a matter of lottery – so? Just race. Just come over and have fun. At last: We will organize Finnish Sportboats Associations first ever race in this month, 23rd – 24th , and everyone is more than welcome. It’s not so long distance from nearby countries and we will arrange everything for our guests. We expect lots of racing, huge autumn winds and good party – and of course the Sauna! Here’s
the invitation to the race at SA
forums Best regards from Finland, Vesa Salo |
Finland
is quite active sailing country and there’s lots of
racing too. Usually people do occasionally some weekend racing and
sometimes also evening races with the same boats they cruise with,
so it’s common to race handicap here. We also have good Olympic
campaigns and Finnish sailors are doing well in top
of the world in some classes. The situation is very
similar in Sweden and Denmark too, for some reason the scene is like
that - common people is racing with cruisers. Hmm….
