Finn: World’s Coolest Yachts

Yachting World has been asking top sailors and marine industry gurus to choose the coolest and most innovative yachts of our times. British sailing legend Keith Musto picked the Finn dinghy. Here’s the report:

“The Finn is the boat that taught me the most,” says Musto. After sailing the Cadet, Musto moved into the Finn dinghy in the early 1960s.

“Initially, I was 10½ stone (147 pounds), and 5ft 8in, so it was a bit silly. I quickly learned that you either master it or it masters you, and – being bloody-minded – I wasn’t prepared to let it master me.

“Being very light, we got up to everything you could think of. We made a leaf spring boom, so that at a certain wind strength the boom would start to ease the main in conjunction with the mast.”

Musto also developed a universal joint tiller extension fitting, which became the first version of the fitting used on thousands of dinghies since. The Finn was an Olympic class from 1952-2020, latterly the ‘men’s heavyweight dinghy’.

As Musto was light for the class, he instead had to try to outsmart his heavier opponents, a strategy which continued when he moved into the Flying Dutchman for the 1964 Olympics.

He also worked hard on strength and fitness, unheard of for sailors at the time. “We hadn’t got the weight, so we had to have stamina. And all of that stems from the Finn,” he recalls.

Finn dinghy stats rating
Top speed: 15 knots
LOA: 4.5m/14.7ft
Launched: 1949
Berths: 0
Price: £5,000-£15,000
Adrenalin factor 80%

For Yachting World’s list of cool boats, click here.