Kristian Sjöberg Interview

bLISSFuLLY FORGET AbOuT NOT bEING YOuNG ANY MORE

Kristian Sjöberg returned to Finn sailing in 2016 and was immediately hooked. He is now part of the organising committee for this year’s Finn World Masters in Helsinki. He talks here about his journey, and the future of the class as well as looking forward to this year’s major Masters event.

I got acquainted with the sea and sailing from a very young age aboard the family sailing boat cruising the Finnish archipelago for a couple of weeks every summer. When deemed old enough I was entrusted with my own Optimist, sailing it come rain or shine. I was lucky enough to have some friends who also had dinghies, which meant we were able to spend a lot of time just playing around and sailing around the islands close to where we lived in Helsinki.

Sailing gave us a lot of freedom and kept us busy, as long as we remembered to be home by dark. We had no guidance and learned everything by doing it ourselves. I remember vividly one late autumn having sailed our dinghies a long way outside Helsinki, coming back to Särkkä island – famous for being the location of the 1952 Olympics prize giving – and being totally wet and frozen without anything dry to change into, we realised we had grossly infringed the rule of being at home by dark but had no money to call home from the phone booth to let someone know that we were alive (which was usually the case). The oldest of the boys however showed us a way to make a call without a coin and thus this very essential skill was passed on to us young ones there and then. What we did not however manage to do was to elicit any pity from our parents and were left taking the bus home in our wet clothes.

From then on, having sailed a boat called Flipper Scow with a friend of mine I switched to the Europe dinghy with racing starting to become a lot more frequent.

My exposure to the Finn was basically zero before 1980 but after the Europe class worlds in Helsinki in 1980 the newly crowned Olympic gold medallist in the Finn, Esko Rechardt, arrived and announced to us after our prize giving that we would now become real sailors, Finn sailors. Almost then and there some four or five Finn dinghies were bought from some of the foreign sailors who had attended the Finn Europeans in Helsinki before the Olympics and within a few years we were some four to six Finnish sailors touring the international Finn regattas under the auspices of our gold medallist.

RETURN

Having been mostly absent from any serious sailing since 1988 but having tried a new Finn in 2014 I took part in the FWM 2016 in Torbole and have not been able to shake it off since. Whilst revisiting and reliving an old fling is never a good idea, this anyhow came pretty close, but without the adverse consequences. The feeling of surfing down big waves in heavy air, heeled dangerously to windward takes some beating and one tends to, in that fleeting moment, blissfully forget about not being that young any more.

The Masters fleet is very diverse when it comes to the sailors experience and motivation and it is very nice to see how many different people can find satisfaction on so many different levels. When the absolute race result itself becomes less important there is much more time to enjoy the company of others and even the actual travelling to and from events can be made into a joy. Having gotten used to travelling from Finland to the southern Europe in a non-stop fashion in our youth I was amazed by the effect of firstly inviting my better half to the trip itself and ultimately of outsourcing the whole planning of the travel itinerary.

Whilst sailing mostly provides us with a way to relax and maybe shield us from a hectic life and a chaotic world, that tranquillity and luxury can easily be shattered as we have seen.

The fact that some of us Masters have had to rush home to step right into the line of fire to defend their home and families from aggression has forced us, understandably, to take a stance. We can only hope that our friends stay safe and that we at some point can have an approach that allows for more nuances.

MOTIVATOR

Sailing the Finn at this age is a great motivator to keeping fit. The class is also extraordinarily versatile in the sense that almost anyone in the 80-120 kg weight bracket can tune their boat to a competitive level. Of course it has to

be admitted that I, being quite light, do sometimes hark back to the good old heavy-jacket days when the extra weight was something you simply could clip on before the start.

Currently my only comparison to the Finn is the Dragon, which I do some sailing in every now and then. The class has a tremendously high standard but if I tell you that I refer to it as ´The Bus´ you probably know how I experience it compared to the Finn. I do however reserve myself the right to change my mind with age…

I think that Masters Finn sailing can continue to grow from here. We actually have surprisingly few top sailors from the 1980 and 1990s in the class and we should look at ways to entice more to join us. It is not a surprise that the grand masters category is the most popular as having reached 50 years of age one tends to have more time as family and work responsibilities are more manageable.

The class is in a transformation that will probably be very abrupt after the loss of the Olympic status but also because of the reduced activity during the pandemic. This year’s FGC will therefore be very important as it will show us where we are. Whereas before, our organisation could act more like a custodian of the Finn heritage we are now faced with a totally new situation.

Most 2020 (2021) campaigners have stopped sailing the Finn and this is also sadly true for most of the juniors.

In the absence of Olympic status the class has to be able to provide something else to attract new and young sailors. Either as a springboard to some other class or by creating special events that would enhance the careers of sailors.

There is still a large cohort of recent campaigners whom have just left the class and of whom many still have aspirations within sailing. Some kind of special event(s) that would gain recognition outside the class might be needed to lure some of the recent heavy hitters back into their boats.

Besides looking into the feasibility of special events we also need to decide if it makes sense to continue with separate masters events. Already now it looks like this year’s Finn Gold Cup would consist of over 80% Masters.

Outside the championship events we have a tremendous amount of Masters activity spread across different countries. It might also be worthwhile looking into elevating some international events to a Ranking status to increase participation in a defined series across different countries.

HELSINKI

As we all know it will be 70 years since the Finn debuted in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. It is a great honour for the Finnish Finn sailors to host all you Masters in the same waters and we will do our best to make you enjoy your stay in Finland. Helsinki is ready to welcome the Masters to this great event. The regatta is in the middle of the Finnish summer and we are expecting very nice conditions with typical temperatures around 20°C and wind 8-17 knots. It can be a lot hotter as well. In 2021 we had over a month of daily max temperatures over 30°C. The Masters fleet in Finland has grown rapidly since the announcement of the hosting of the FWM2022 with 24 Finnish entries currently. The local association has been very active in arranging training for some of the newcomers with many also travelling to warmer climes during the winter for training. A large group will also turn up in Malcesine in May. Amongst the FWM entries to date we have that of Lauri Rechardt, Finnish representative in the 1988 Olympics and Europeans 1989 bronze medallist whilst foreign pedigree will be represented by the likes of Sebastien Godefroid from Belgium, the silver medallist from 1996 Atlanta Olympics and for example Thomas Schmidt, the Gold Cup winner from 1987. In addition the entry list includes twice Finn World Masters winner John Greenwood, 1976 Finn Gold Cup winner Magnus Olin and the two recent Finn European Masters winners, Filipe Silva and Akos Lukats.

I look forward to see you all in Helsinki.