Looking for plans of Rickard Sarby’s Olympic Finn Dinghy in wood

Wooden Finn Dinghy restored ... anybody know where to get plans?

I received this email from Greg

Hello.
I am owner of wooden finn dinghy. I’m great fan of this class, specialy wooden made.
I was wondering if is there any chance to find or buy building plans of finn dinghy somewere in internet?
Looking to hear from you.

Regards
Greg

The Finn is a completely classic boat and quite radical for its day. It was designed by Rickard Sarby and was essentially a fattened up and cut off (at one end) sailing canoe hullshape. That is probably where the inspiration for the unstayed rig came from too.

Classic wooden finn sailboat restored by Australian boatbuilder Ross Lillistone

Rickard was a champion canoe sailor prewar, I believe.

Finn Dinghy regatta post war

Anyway … are there plans around for a building a wooden Finn?

The closest information I could find to a Finn Dinghy Plan that could be used for boatbuilding was on the Spanish Finn Class page to define the shape of the Finn which is for the making of measurement templates. Happily it defines a lot of the shape, but doesn’t quite pin down a baseline for them.

Also this page from the Classic part of the Finn website.  It is labelled 1974.

PDF for measuring a Finn Dinghy – could be used as a plan?

I have just found that there is a “Classic Finn” Sailing Dinghy Class Association in the UK.  It is focussed on boats built prior to 1965, but it has tuning and setup guides.  Which are just fantastic for anyone wanting to recreate a classic Finn in modern timber.

If anyone knows of more complete information I would love to see it – please post it here in the Comments.

I will leave you with this slideshow of a wooden Finn restored by Australian Boatbuilder Ross Lillistone. I wrote an article here about Ross’s Finn Dinghy.

Wivenhoe July 08 021

1 thought on “Looking for plans of Rickard Sarby’s Olympic Finn Dinghy in wood”

  1. Hi Greg, wherever in the world you are..
    I might have the good news you´re waiting for..
    Today I mailed the Naval History Museeum in Stockholm (Sweden),
    asked for avaibility and price for the Finn plans(dated 1950).
    So if you still are interested,I will probably have an answer soon.
    I´m an ex.canoe sailor,bought an old coldmolded mahogany veneer finn
    just a year ago, which is undergoing a mayor restoration.

    cheers Lasse ahrmanbup@hotmail.com

    Reply

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