Caleb Paine leads Finn North Americans

Long Beach, CA (May 16, 2014) – Caleb Paine has his sights set on representing the U.S. in the 2016 Olympic sailing at Rio de Janeiro and is making friends along the way to help him get there.

One is Greg Douglas from Toronto, who won these Finn class North American championships at Alamitos Bay Yacht Club two years ago when he also represented Canada in the Olympics.

He is now a training partner for Paine, and the relationship showed in painful conditions for the first of three days of the event that started Friday when Douglas led fellow Canadian Roy Hemming around the windward mark, with Paine in third place—but the first two neglected to round the white bulb offset mark before turning downwind.

Paine noticed their oversight and yelled to let them know about it as he rounded the bulb to move into first place, prompting Douglas and Hemming to scramble back to round properly.

Why did Paine speak up?

“The nice thing to do,” he said, smiling, “the Corinthian thing to do . . . they’re friends of mine.”

And although Douglas and Hemming recovered to finish ninth and sixth, respectively, it may not make any difference when throwouts kick in after five of the scheduled nine races.

Paine, who is from San Diego but now has an Olympic training relationship with St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco, emerged from the dismal day in first place with three points after Douglas beat him by three boat lengths in the second race.

For the moment, Philip Toth is in second place with a steady 5-3 for 8 points in the 19-boat fleet, one point ahead of Andy Kern (2-7), who is one ahead of Douglas.

A third race planned for Friday was canceled after an hour’s futile wait for wind. The south-southeast winds peaked at a puny (for Long Beach) 4.5 knots on the flat offshore race course outside the breakwater, then faded to 2.5 for a second race before the race committee gave up hope after an hour’s futile wait for a third race.

They’ll probably make it up. The schedule calls for as many as nine races over the three days in the greater Long Beach Harbor, starting at noon each day, conditions permitting.

The conditions were so off-normal for Long Beach that veteran Henry Sprague, in seventh place with a 3-9 log, said, “In the 50 years I’ve been sailing here I’ve never seen the current going west at 3 knots.”

Sprague, 68, said that enigma complicated the challenge of picking the best side of the course, prompting the fleet to split left and right, with better wind one way but a current the wrong way.

Maybe they’ll all figure it out before the last two days, or maybe conditions will kick in with the popular Long Beach southwest sea breeze.

The Finn dinghy, designed by Rickard Sarby in 1949 and first sailed in the 1952 Olympic Games at Helsinki, Finland, has been raced in every Olympics since as the longest enduring Olympic class. The two-man Star class is gone from the Games but the Finns sail on as a singlehander for heavyweights, while smaller people sail Lasers.

The leaders (after 4 of 9 races)
1. Caleb Paine, St. Francis YC, 1-2, 3 points.
2. Philip Toth, Mooloolaba YC, 5-3, 8.
3. Andy Kern, no club, 2-7, 9.
4. Greg Douglas, Royal Canadian YC, 9-1, 10.
5. Chuck Rudinsky, no club, 7-4, 11.

Complete results– Event information

Report by Rich Roberts.