Return to Content list 19. History of IFA Development Clinics and Camps by Gus Miller No one ever does something entirely alone, even winning a Finn Regatta wouldn't happen without all the other Finnsters. A Finnster learns to master himself as he learns to master the Finn (which no one ever really does) and he soon learns it is far more important to master yourself than to master others. So it was with the idea for the IFA Development Program. The IFA Development Program really began long ago as the informal mixed country training sessions that we all enjoy today. As more countries in the 1950s began to take up Finn sailing, they would invite top Finnsters to come give their young sailors training camps. It became formalised as a goal of IFA in 1979 when I was Vice President Sailing. Since then, sailors from some fifty countries have benefited from the program. Some attendees have gone on to win Olympic Medals and World Championships and credit the clinics with really helping their knowledge and development. Funding has come from Olympic Solidarity, many countries Sailing Organisations and Olympic Committees and private individuals. The network of people involved have spread their knowledge throughout the sailing world. That network has also been important in keeping the Finn in the Olympics during the political battles to replace it with other boats. The program itself was an original and became the model for other classes and sports. Samaranch liked it because it produced what it said it would and most of the funds went directly to support and develop athletes and not officials. Over time, the program has spread to include other classes. especially the 470, Europe, Sailboards and Laser. Classic Finn leadership! In 1967, I went to the pre-Olympic Regatta in Acapulco as an adventure and learned much just watching and listening. I especially remember Paul Elvstrom walking around his rigged boat, experimenting with the sail controls to learn his rig before he launched it. I was racing big boats and did not bother with our trials in 1972 but in 1973, at the suggestion of friends, I went to the Canadian pre-Olympics, finished fifth, met David Howlett and enjoyed the racing immensely which enticed me into going for my first real Finn campaign. I was also impressed with the openness of the Finnsters with sharing their knowledge with each other. I quickly realised that this quality of character was what made the Finn Class sailors so great. As a chemistry teacher, I already knew that being open paid off because when you answer someone's question, you generally learned more from thinking about the answer than the person you are giving the answer to. Classic Finn thinking! In the next three years before the 1976 Olympics I sought out and learned a great deal from Finn sailors and coaches outside the US. David Howlett from the UK, Guy Liljegren from Sweden, Sandy Riley from Canada, John Bertrand from Australia, Andy Zawieja from Poland and Andrei Balashov from Russia were six that I trained with and shared especially good insights into racing a Finn. Jacques Rogge, Gilbert Lamboley, Oleg Shilov and many others were fun to get to know besides picking their brains about Finns. After improving to being third in the Europeans, I came second in our trials (I hadn't learned that I could win yet but that fall I finally won the North Americans) and went to the Sailing Olympics in Kingston as a tune up partner. Classic Finn story! The Kingston experience changed my view and understanding of the Olympics. It was quite interesting to see and be a small part of that event. Besides training with the American, I had the chance to go sailing with all my worldwide Finnster friends again. I even had Prince Philip come up at one point and ask how the day was going. Then Jessie Villarreal from the Philippines and some of the other coaches asked me to work with a Philippines sailor who had never sailed a Finn before. After my duties with the US Team were over I defected to become the Philippines Finn boat boy. My sights changed from going for an Olympic berth and Medal to making sure that a newcomer got around the course safely and was actually racing. Classic Finn evolution! Gus on his way to winning Race 2 of the 1992 Gold Cup I now saw the Olympics as a great international carnival with a focus on excellence in sport where most had no chance at a medal but were participating in a fabulous tradition. That ideal of shared excellence, which is carried into the world, is a wonderfully powerful force. Especially so in the face of the self interested corruption that now soils the Olympics. Classic Finn ideals! In 1977 Pat Healy was secretary of the USA Finn Association and organised a Finn clinic in Annapolis. He had left Pewaukee, Wisconsin which was then an important centre of the Finn world and was coaching the Naval Academy dinghy racing team. I was the Finn representative on the US Olympic Yachting Committee and pushed to get as many Americans as possible to sail with the rest of the world. Classic Finn subversion! In 1978 Ontario Sailing Association put on a week long Finn clinic for Canadians and asked Paul Elvstrom and me to be the coaches. Their ambassador to Denmark asked the Danish Government to arrange Paul's trip as a favour to Canada. I think there were as many reporters paying their own way to attend than sailors. Classic reaction to Finn sailors! In 1979 I became IFA VP Sailing in Weymouth which the Americans dominated. At the Tallinn pre-Olympics, where I was third, and in Helsinki I was asked for coaching help by many, especially the Estonians who asked for me to come back for a training camp. At that time we began to organise a camp in Helsinki before the 1980 Regatta in Tallinn. In 1980 President Carter's mistaken boycott changed everything, including my Finn sailing focus. I still enjoyed racing hard, but coaching and sharing the personal development of Finn sailors became the biggest interest. I was as interested in and enjoyed the guys at the back of the fleet who were suffering and working hard as I was those in the front of the fleet (where I still would make occasional appearances). I also had a great pride that the Finn had the hardest and best level of racing in the world. Other classes had their moments but nothing I saw in them ever matched what I saw in the Finn. Classic Finn racing! In 1983 in Milwaukee, after a couple of years out of the Finn because of knee surgery to repair a stupid weight lifting mistake, we again began to do clinics before Finn Gold Cups. In 1984 we were looking for a US host for a pre-Olympic training camp in Los Angeles but no clubs were willing, they were all too involved with getting ready to put the Games on. Pat Healy had become the Canadian National Coach and was a landed immigrant in Canada. He got support from the Ontario Sailing Association and CYA. Gerardo got Samarach's personal help and found out about unused Olympic Solidarity funds available for ISAF. Andy Zawieja and I joined forces with Pat and sixteen countries sent Olympic bound sailors for training. Andy and I followed them to Los Angeles where we measured 80 masts to get the best rig for each of our sailors. A local fitness club gave free access to Olympic sailors and we watched Russell Coutts get huge; he is a shadow of his former self now. My van became a bus for Finn sailors but one night with Andy, the cooling system failed in downtown Los Angeles. The Japanese sailor who won the Training Regatta in Canada wasn't allowed in the Olympics because his coaches in their ignorance didn't think he was good enough. The Taiwan Chinese translated for the Mainland Chinese. A Pakistani and an Indian trained together happily and an Egyptian fought hard with a Fijian to stay out of the back of the fleet. I most remember the day when Trini almost won a race and the entire fleet was on the beach congratulating him when his delegation arrived to see what he was up to. Classic Finnster training and luck! In the summer of 1986 Craig Monk appeared on my back porch, said he wanted to do a Finn campaign and asked if I would be willing to help him. That was the beginning of a long friendship all over the world and was a step towards Craig's Bronze in Barcelona. It was a wonderful moment when he came back to that back door after Barcelona to say thank you and show me his scrap books and the medal. The medal was a replacement the Spanish had given him because the original had become badly abused during Craig's celebration after the award ceremony. When the taxi bringing him home dropped him off at the village, he sat on the curb for a little rest before he climbed the stairs to his bed. About 45 minutes later, another taxi load of Kiwis were dropped off when they saw a body in the street gutter. They said, "Oh, look at the dirty body in the gutter...oh, it's Craig! We better get him to his bed." Craig's beautiful white presentation uniform of the medal ceremony was now black and smelly. Classic Finn sailor! 1988 was an adventure. There were five clinics around the world. Andy Zawieja put on one in Palma de Majorca, Mike Fletcher and John Bertrand joined forces for one in Brisbane, we had one in Miami and I went to Tallinn to do one in the Soviet Union with the help of Heino Lind and Juri Saraskin. The 1988 Miami clinic almost didn't happen because two containers of Finns for the clinic were on a freighter coming back from the Gold Cup in Brazil when the ship's itinerary was redirected from Miami to Norfolk. It was a mess because there were sailors from fifteen countries already in the air on their way to Miami. It took two days to undo the mess. The Shipping line had to allow their ship to be unloaded to get the containers off the bottom of the stacks. The Freight Terminal had to allow their equipment to be used on a holiday for free. The Longshoremen had to allow their workers to work for nothing on a holiday. The Teamsters Union had to make arrangements for truck the container overnight 1000 miles from Norfolk to Miami. Thanks to the generosity of many, it all came together and the sailors unloaded the containers the night before the clinic was scheduled to begin. Peter Holmberg was an attendee at that clinic and spent as much time in the coach boat watching and coaching as he did in the Finn practising. Classic Finn sailor! During the '88 clinic in Tallinn, I worked with a young North Korean and invited him to the clinic I was going to give in Pusan before the Olympics. This was important to me because the North Koreans had been an opponent for a year when I was a young Marine, and I needed to make an effort to change that relationship. When I notified the 65 nations in IFA about the Pusan Clinic, I mentioned that the young North Korean was going to come because at that point, the North was scheduled to send a Team. Well, the South Korean Government didn't like this idea and complained to the US State Department who asked US Sailing what was going on. The State Department accepted my explanation but the South Koreans sent me a Telex telling me not to come. I threw the Telex in the trash and went, knowing it would be an effort to make the clinic happen. In the end it was a great success. I had a Korean Marine commando boat driven by two Korean Marine as a coach boat and received a salute every time I passed a guard at a door or passed the harbour entrance. Classic Finn attitude! 16 Estonian Finn and 470 sailors joined a 1989 IFA clinic in Miami that the US Olympic Committee gave $10,000 to fund. In 1990 we had a memorable training in Greece that IFA organised with a number of coaches giving training. In 1991 we had an IFA training camp before the Kingston Gold Cup based in my Rhode Island home that Luca Devoti came to. I had him practice meditation every morning for 45 minutes to train his mind to calm down and concentrate. My message to him before each race was to either finish the race or commit suicide because if he didn't finish, I was going to kill him. I nearly killed him when he black flagged a Gold Cup race and his excuse was, "But Hansie sheeted in first." That training camp is where I learned that when Valentin Mankin complained to Oleg Shilov when Oleg broke Valentin's best mast, Oleg responded, "What could I do, you are so fast." Classic Finn trick! The 1992 clinics again involved a number of coaches. The Olympics were interesting because all the Finn coaches were on one boat and not much happened on the course that wasn't closely observed and talked about. It was an effective coaching clinic. One time when Craig started deep the wrong way, John Cutler said in his quiet way, "I wouldn't have done that." Classic Finn coach! In 1994 the New Zealand Yachting Federation, at Craig's suggestion, asked me to do a clinic for all their Olympic Classes. The lecture notes I gave there appear elsewhere in this book [p. 164]. While there I learned about the WaterWise program for school children. It is the best, most effective program of its kind that I have seen in the world and is what I am trying to take to the world after the Finn. I always thought that if the IFA had the funds devoted to one America's Cup campaign, it could transform dinghy racing in the world. Using IFA's position as a leading Class to disperse WaterWise can also have such a powerful effect on sailing around the world. Classic Finn influence! Gus Miller 1995 saw a clinic before the Gold Cup in Melbourne that directly led to the 1999 World Sailing Championships. 1996 saw the IFA training more focused on the back of the fleet because more competitors had private coaches. The IFA is world famous for its coaching and development with a solid program and many people committed to Finn excellence. Classic Finn Tradition! Return to Content list