2026 Finn World Masters at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron - Day 2
by Robert Deaves 24 Feb 12:20 GMT
23-27 February 2026
Marko Kolic, from Italy, won the only race possible on the second day of the Porsche Centre Brisbane 2026 Finn World Masters at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron, in Brisbane, Australia.
However, Australia's Brendan Casey has extended his lead to three points at the top, from Spain's Rafa Trujillo in second and Britain's Lawrence Crispin in third. There are 107 Finns from 16 countries taking part.
It was a day of two halves. The fleet set out for a 13.00 start but on arrival the wind speeds were well above the 20-knot limit for the Masters. After a short wait the fleet was sent back to the harbour to wait for the wind to subside.
Back in the marina, the conditions had already improved, and the fleet was sent out again for a 15.00 start. The wind was still around 15-16 knots and looking like it might increase, but then the opposite happened and it died during the race to 7-9 knots.
Trujillo made the best of the first upwind to round ahead of Crispin and Kolic. The first downwind still had free pumping turned on and Kolic made a gain to round the gate less than a boatlength ahead of Trujillo but then extended up the second beat to lead by around 20 seconds at the top. He maintained his lead to win the race, with Casey then passing Trujillo on the last leg to cross second. With daylight running out no second race was possible and the fleet was sent back to the marina.
Kolic said, "Today I'm very happy with my performance and I won the race. I made a fantastic start on the pin and my strategy on the upwind and downwind went very well today. It was not easy because the wind was a little bit shifty.
"And the second downwind was so, so, so longer to keep mentally focused on the gate, but I did it, so I'm very happy. I'm looking forward to making two races tomorrow.
"It's incredible because at the Gold Cup with a stronger wind I didn't sail so well. And today with light wind, I was much better, so I don't know, maybe it's better for me to hope that tomorrow we have some light wind, who knows."
Fabian Lemmel, from Germany had his best race of the events so far with a fifth.
"Today was a tough day because the conditions changed a lot. First, we went out to sail in 12 to 15 knots, but then it was about 25, so they sent us in again. And then we went out again and it was at the start like 18.
"Much pressure in the sails, but on the second round the wind dropped down to maybe seven knots, so it was really hard to sail, to trim like for all the different kinds of wind. But I was doing pretty good in the end.
"My downwind speed was pretty good, so I made a lot of positions on the downwinds and finished fifth, so I'm really happy.
"The prediction for tomorrow is low winds and then the winds going up, so I don't know if we're gonna sail on Thursday and Friday because it's the Masters, so over 20 knots we will not start, so we'll see."
One more race is scheduled for Wednesday at 13.30, after the Annual Masters Meeting is held in the morning. The event continues until Friday.
Results after Day 2: (top ten, 3 races)
1 AUS 11 Brendan Casey 4pts
2 ESP 100 Rafael Trujillo 7pts
3 GBR 74 Lawrence Crispin 14pts
4 ITA 40 Marko Kolic 22pts
5 POR 21 Filipe Silva 28pts
6 AUS 221 Anthony Nossiter 30pts
7 GBR 790 Nick Craig 32pts
8 NED 148 Peter Peet 33pts
9 AUS 98 Lucas Prescott 35pts
10 NZL 111 Karl Purdie 38pts
Full results here.