There are three stand-out aspects to Pieter-Jan Postma’s victory at the 2025 Finn Masters World Championship held this June at Medemblik in the Netherlands.
The first thing of note is the size of the fleet – with a gargantuan total of 301 Finn sailors from around the world taking part in the five-day, eight-race series. The second is Postma’s scoreline – a hugely impressive string of six race wins and two fourth places. Thirdly, his dominating performance came after a three-year absence from Finn sailing for the Dutch sailor.
All that said, given that Postma is a three-time Olympian and that the last event he did in a Finn was his victory at the 2022 Finn Gold Cup on Lake Garda, there is no denying that he went into the 2025 world championship as a firm favourite.
However, unlike during his years of Olympic campaigning when he would arrive at regattas fully prepared and with proven, tried and trusted kit, for this year’s Masters Worlds he had done no more than a week of sailing with a newly developed mast from Ceilidh Masts (carbonmasts.com) and a new mainsail.
“It was quite a big challenge to take on but it was also quite exciting to try to make it work,” Postma told me.
He quickly discovered that the new mast – which was designed to be stiffer sideways – delivered good speed in mid-range and windier conditions.
