Pieter-Jan Postma lifts the World Championship title in Helsinki
Pieter-Jan Postma lifts the World Championship title in Helsinki
by Robert Deaves on Jul 8 09:18 PDT
1–8 July 2022
Just two months after winning the first Finn Gold Cup, Dutchman Pieter-Jan Postma is the first person in history to have also won the Finn World Masters in the same year. This week he has put together a fence score line in Helsinki and had a good time working with the Masters fleet. Frenchman Laurent Hay remained second and Dutchman Peter Peet third.
Holland won the main prize tonight at Helsingfors Segelklubb, won the Nations Cup and the Club Cup for Het Witte Huis and many individual awards besides the Postman.
The final day of racing was always forecast to be light, never more than 5-8 knots, and it took nearly an hour to get the fleet off in the fluctuating wind. Postma started from the third row but led at the top but could not break away from the fleet with Hungary’s Székely Antal never far behind. Dutchman Gert van der Heijden was third.
Postma joins the elite group that has won the Finn World Masters with outright wins and honored the sailors, organizers and the rest of the fleet at the award ceremony on Friday evening on the steps of Helsingfors Segelklubb. The original 1952 Olympic podium finisher event was created to celebrate 70 years since a Finn first participated in the Olympics.
In the Finn category, age knows no bounds and the first performance was for Super Legends, over 80 years old. Britain’s Richard Hart won again, although again saying it was probably his last event, something he has been saying for 10 years. Once a Finnish sailor…
Hans Fatzer retained the Legends trophy he won last year, while John Greenwood won the Great Grand Masters and Laurent Hay Grand Masters. Postma was, of course, a top champion. Although there are several age groups in the Finn Masters, they all compete as one fleet, and the inclusion and community spirit is an important part of what makes this event so successful.
This year the event was the first in Finland and the northernmost ever. Next year, the event will move far south to Kavala, Greece, where the class is already expecting more than 250 participants, bringing it somewhere close to pre-coronavirus numbers. For those who think a May trip to sail with other Finnish enthusiasts sounds like fun, more information can be found here and more will be published soon. finnworldmasters.com/events/kavala-iraklitsa-2023
Overall results: (top ten, 7 races)
1 NED 842 Pieter Jan Postma 6 pts
2 FRA 75 Laurent Hay 25 points
3 NED 148 Peter Peet 35 pts
4 POR 21 Filipe Silva 42 pts
5 NZL 111 Karl Purdie 55 pts
6 NED 41 Karel Van Hellemond 66 pts
7 NED 25 Gert Van Der Heijden 72 points
8 GBR 5 John Greenwood 74 pts
9 FIN 234 Ville Aalto-Setälä 84p
10 NED 80 Sander Willems 85 pts
Full results can be found here.
The website of the event at fwm2022.com