Pieter-Jan Postma, from The Netherlands, has won his second Finn World Masters title as the 2025 Finn World Masters drew to a close in Medemblik on Friday, after having won the title on Thursday with a day to spare. Laurent Hay, from France, was also secure in second, while Taras Havrysh, from Ukraine, moved up to third on the final day.
The 2025 Finn World Masters has been an exceptional event in all aspects, from the competition, race management, onshore socials, partners programme but most of all for the weather. The 2008 Finn World Masters was also held in Medemblik and also had exceptional weather, so perhaps Finn Masters are just exceptionally lucky. For sure everyone in Medemblik this week felt lucky and privileged to be there. The atmosphere was just incredible.
The final race on the final day was probably the trickiest of the week with light and patchy easterlies mixing up the racing. While Hay won the yellow group, to end on equal points with Postma, who struggled in blue group and finally crossed in fourth. Eric Bakker, from The Netherlands led blue group from start to finish. On the other course area, Switzerland’s Michael Good won green group, while Havrysh won the red group
Pieter-Jan Postma, said, “I am super happy. It was an incredible event, but besides racing, I think the most important thing is the character of the people. You know we have such a good atmosphere, we always have such a good character and everybody’s here to cheer on one another and we all enjoy sailing, I mean, we have a variety of ages going from 40 to 88, but the passion is there for everybody, so I’m very grateful to be sailing and to be part of the Finn class and this week was just amazing.”
Postma also won the Masters age group, Havrysh won the Grand Masters age group and Hay won the Great Grand Masters category. As is traditional, all 32 Legends (those over 70) and nine Super Legends (those over 80) were celebrated on stage, representing as a group the aspiration of everyone present. New Zealand’s Rob Coutts retained the Legends title, with Rodrick Casander, from The Netherlands, again won the Super Legends title.
Laurent Hay said, “It was a very beautiful championship, and we had a fantastic weather, we had good breeze with a lot of different conditions, so it was really nice. We had some great battles, a lot of sportsmanship. I’m very happy about my championship, I had some good battles with PJ Postma, I tried to do my best, but he was just better. I am super happy and I want to thank all the volunteers, the race committee, and the jury. It was a perfect race.”
A huge thanks to the enthusiastic Organising Committee, led by the unflappable Jan Zetzema, the Royal Hollandia YC and the Regatta Centre Medemblik for the superb welcome, hospitality and convivial atmosphere that made this event such a great Finn World Masters. The crowded award presentation and overly enthusiastic response was enough evidence to how much everyone enjoyed the event. It was epic.
It is not long to wait until the next Finn World Masters, which is being raced on Morton Bay, in Brisbane, Australia, in February 2026, and hosted by the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron. We can’t wait.
Final results after 8 races
1 NED 842 Pieter-Jan POSTMA 10
2 FRA 75 Laurent HAŸ 10
3 UKR 8 Taras HAVRYSH 274 NED 68 Martijn van MUYDEN 32
5 ESP 7 David TEROL 32
6 NED 703 Eric BAKKER 34
7 GER 501 Fabian LEMMEL 34
8 GBR 790 Nick CRAIG 40
9 AUS 2 Rob McMILLAN 41 & 3rd Great Grand Masters
10 DEN 7 Søren HOLM 42
