Finns head south for European Masters titles
by Robert Deaves 18 Oct 09:56 PDT
16-23 October 2026
The 2026 Finn European Masters is being held in Los Alcazares, on the Mar Menor, in Spain, this week.
While many expected a hot and sunny autumn excursion, it has so far not been the case every day with significant rain and 'low' temperatures over the weekend following the arrival of a huge weather system over Spain.
This year is the third time the class has hosted a major championship in Los Alcazares. After a very successful 2007 Finn World Masters the fleet returned in 2021 for an equally successful, late organised event, under the shadow of the pandemic. This year there are 118 entries from 20 countries.
Spanish title
France's Valerian Lebrun won last week's Spanish National Championship with Miguel Fernandez Vasco taking the Spanish title as the top Spanish sailor in second overall. The 2026 Grand Slam winner, Bas de Waal, from The Netherlands was third.
Six races were sailed with Fernandez Vasco and fourth placed Laurent Hay winning two each and Lebrun and de Waal winning one each. Miguel Fernandez Vasco won the Spanish title ahead of Dabid Terol and Xavier Penas. Moderate winds on Thursday gave way to much lighter winds on Friday and then Saturday was abandoned with a weather warning ahead of the incoming bad weather over the weekend.
Form
Lebrun also won the Finn World Masters here in 2021 but will have a lot harder time this year. Spanish champion, Fernández Vasco will be competing in his first Masters event, while former World no. 1 Laurent Hay will also prove to be a tough challenger.
In addition, there is the current World No.1, Peter Peet, and Grand Slam winner, Bas de Waal, both from the Netherlands, former Spanish champions, David Terol and Xavier Penas, former World Masters champion, Filipe Silva, Zsigmond Kantor, Tibor Pallay and Akos Lukats from Hungary, Paul Mckenzie from Australia, Sebbe Godefroid from Belgium, Lawrence Crispin and Nick Craig from Britain, Christoph Burger from Switzerland and Marko Kolic from Italy.
The Finn European Masters event is only held as a separate event in years when one of the world titles is outside Europe, to add an additional event to complete the season. This year both the Finn Gold Cup and Finn World Masters were in Brisbane in February.
However, the European Masters titles are otherwise awarded at the Open Europeans, which last year was held in Naples, Italy. Lebrun won both the Open European title as well as the European Masters at that event.
The fleet will be sailing in one group with the standard format of eight races over five days, with the usual fantastic hospitality off the water.
Unfortunately, preparations were put on hold on Saturday after several weather alerts along the Spanish coast meant the practice race was cancelled and the opening ceremony delayed to another day. While heavy rain was expected with several orange alerts in place, very little actually fell on Los Alcazares, though there was enough rainfall inland to turn the river flowing into the Mar Menor into a torrent. As the storms passed by at a distance, many sailors ventured onto the water under darkened skies for some last-minute practice.
Racing is scheduled to start on Monday at 12.00 though significant rainfall is still forecast through the day. Racing continues until Friday.