The stage was set for the final day of the 2022 Finn US National Championships in Long Beach hosted by ABYC.
The morning greeted the 37-Finn sailors with sunny, clear blue skies indicating the Long Beach wind-doctor would be making an appearance blowing early and would increase to 18-20 knots by the start of the first race on Sunday/Race 8.
Olympic Medalist and regatta leader Craig Monk (NZL236) handled the windy conditions with ease, winning the first race of the day with Darrel Peck (USA35) finishing in 2nd place and second overall and long time Finn sailor Eric Lidecis (USA 505) in third.
For the final race, the wind picked up to 22 knots, with gusts of 24+ and big waves sailing outside the breakwater and to the south, just off Seal Beach, providing the Finn sailors with exciting huge waves for the downwind surf-fest! In the last and 9th race of the series, overall results seem to be secured with Monk taking the lead from Lidecis on the downwind run, and seemingly for the regatta until Monk caught a wave the wrong way and flipped his Finn and unfortunately for Monk, had a hard time getting his boat righted and continuing to sail on.
Lidecis seized the opportunity after seeing Monk capsize, sailed conservatively to finish third and coupled with sailing a very consistent regatta with no scores worst than a 3rd place in any race, the overall title.
Monk wasn’t able to finish so he had to score his only bad race of his 1,1,1,2,4,13,1 score card to end up 2nd overall-giving Lidecis the overall National Championship title.
Eric credited his win to all the weekends the ABYC Finn fleet had been sailing before the regatta in the same conditions that the fleet saw on Sunday-windy LB conditions.
Finishing in 3rd place overall was Anatolli “AJ” Nosar, always seemingly near the noise with a solid score line, just in front of yet another ABYC Finn sailor, and Top U23 Junior sailor, Peter Sangmeister (USA86) in 4th Overall.
While Peter is a junior sailor he sailed a very consistent regatta and a great example of how your can get better by sailing the Finn 2-3 days a week for months prior and with good coaching. Peter will be representing the USA U23 at next years Gold Cup in Miami and the U23 Silver Cup in Europe later the same year.
Darell Peck (USA35) a veteran Finn sailor and coach with many Finn National and North American Championships under his belt saved his best races of the series for the last day, scoring a 2nd and 1st to overcome Mike Dorgan (USA-8) whom flipped in one race and a broken main halyard in the last race opening the door for Peck to finish in 5th overall with Dorgan finishing in 6th overall.
Top Master – Jack Jennings
Grand Master – Craig Monk
Great Grand Master – Chris Raab
Legend – Henry Sprague.
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