Olympic Impact Grows Fleet

The approach of an Olympic Games normally has a positive influence on activities in the host country and this is proving to be especially true of the Finn class in Brazil.

Just over four years ago a joint initiative between Brazil, Pata Boats of Hungary and the International Finn Association was initiated to import a mould into Brazil to start building boats there for the first time in more than three decades.

The success story of that initiative continues and the class recently held its most successful National Championship in many decades. While numbers are still small compared to some European countries, it attracted 26 boats, out of a total of 36 Finns actively racing in the country, to three days of competition on the Guarapiranga Lake, in Sao Paulo.

The strength of the class was underlined by fact that most of the boats being raced were new boats built in Brazil on the back of the 2008 initiative. While there are still some imports from Europe, the sheer cost – in terms of duties and transport charges – and complexity of this has meant the unmitigated success of the home build project. Before 2008 the class had very little growth because the cost of importing a boat was almost the same as the cost of the boat itself. — Read on