Hai (Finnish, lit. Shark) or Requin (French, lit. Shark) is a one-design,

sloop-rigged A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular s ...

keelboat A keelboat is a riverine cargo-capable working boat, or a small- to mid-sized recreational sailing yacht. The boats in the first category have shallow structural keels, and are nearly flat-bottomed and often used leeboards if forced in open w ...

designed in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. It was designed in 1930 by Finnish sailboat

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design' ...

er Gunnar Stenbäck as a cheap racing and cruising yacht suitable for mass production. It remains a popular small yacht in Finland and France.

History

In the 1920s, one-design yacht classes were relatively scarce and dominating form of yacht racing were various construction classes, which' boats were designed and built one at the time, and thus were quite expensive. Many Nordic top sailors and designers expressed concern about the future of the sport, and Stenbäck argued strongly that only in one-design class the costs could be kept suitably low. As a result, Hai design specified inexpensive materials (Northern pine and oak, iron ballast instead of lead) and relatively small sail area so that winches were not required. Keel was long and shallow, to ensure safety on rocky Baltic waters. Stenbäck presented his design in 1930; the first boat was built and presented to the public next year and the design soon proved popular and many yards began constructing the class. The HSS yachtclub in Helsinki was instrumental in giving impetus to the class before World War II. Boats were also exported; around 100 boats to France, some thirty to USA and also to Germany, Sweden and Baltic countries. However, class rules requirement of Finnish made sails slowed down growth abroad and although this was later relaxed, no international class association was ever set up. After World War II, Hai faced stiff competition from

Nordic Folkboat The Nordic Folkboat (Swedish: Nordisk Folkbåt) is a Swedish sailboat that was designed by and Tord Sundén as a racer- cruiser and first built in 1942. Even though Sundén drafted the plans with design ideas provided by Iversen, Sundén was ...

and Dragon (which was accepted as Olympic class) and it never achieved same international status. However, it was the biggest keelboat class in Finland until the 1960s, when it was supplanted by Hans Groop's

H-boat The H-Boat is a strict one-design keelboat designed by Finn Hans Groop in 1967, with some minor modifications by Paul Elvstrøm in 1971. The boat gained international status in 1977. Since 1967 over 5000 hulls have been made, making it one ...

, also a class initiated by HSS. Despite this, it remains an active competition class and construction of new boats has continued to the day, although in dwindling numbers. In total, around 290 boats have been registered in Finland. The Finnish Hai is somewhat unusual in that it has remained very similar to its original form, with wooden hulls and spars - GRP boats are not allowed.

French Requin

In France the boat (known as Requin) gained large following and to date, nearly 500 boats have been registered. Owing to lack of authoritative international class association, Requin evolved independently from Finnish class. Plastic is nowadays allowed as hull material, as is aluminium for spars. Sail area is also significantly larger: for mainsail and for jib.

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

is also allowed in Requin.

Hai 2000

A modernized Finnish GRP variant of Hai; hull based on Requin, aluminium spar. Mainsail , jib , spinnaker . Some wooden Hai boats have also been rigged for Hai 2000 class.

International competition

Though as noted, Hai has never been a major international competition class, some regattas between boats from different countries have been organized, especially in the 1930s when boat was gaining popularity around Baltic, but also in recent years, featuring boats from Finland, Germany and France.

References

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External links