Britain’s Nick Craig has won the 2026 OK Dinghy European Championship in Bruinisse, The Netherlands after a close fight with Pim van Vugt, of The Netherlands. World No.1, Thomas Hansson-Mild, from Sweden was third.
Going into the final day Craig and van Vugt were tied on points, so it was always going to be close, and the wind was light. In race 7, a win for Craig and a third for van Vugt, left Craig in the lead in a strong position on 11 points with van Vugt on 13 points, so it would go down to the final race.
In the end, Britain’s Andy Davis won the final race from Australia’s Mark Jackson, closing the gap on Hansson-Mild to three points, just not enough to take the bronze.
The second race abandoned due to too little wind. After waiting half hour for wind to fill in from northwest, 45 minutes before cutoff time it started in 7-8 knots. Van Vugt needed a top 2 place to take the title to Craig decided to make sure of the title and decided to match raced his opponent out of the race – however it was a committee start and everyone was there, so there was not mucg room to match race. On the third attempt to start Craig gave van Vugt some turns to do but then the jury also gave some to Craig. Both ended up deep and eventually van Vugt decided it was all over and headed home.
In his acceptance speech, Craig complemented a PRO that dared to abandon races and try again, which is not seen that much. And thanked everyone for the friendly family feeling at the event
Despite winning six OK Dinghy world championships, Nick Craig has only ever won one European title in the class and that was branded as Euro Cup, so not the actual European title. He has now put that right.
Many thanks to Aquavitesse and Jachthaven Bruinisse for hosting the event and to Thomas Wilkes for masterminding the whole show with a very capable team.
Final results after 8 races
1 GBR 2295 Nick CRAIG 15.0
2 NED 7 Pim van VUGT 18.0
3 SWE 100 Thomas HANSSON-MILD 27.0
4 GBR 11 Andy DAVIS 30.0
5 CAN 26 Baabii’O FLOWER 53.0
6 GER 19 Ulli KURFELD 53.0
7 NZL 24 Sean CLEARY 59.0
8 GER 886 Stefan HOFFMANN 64.0
9 GBR 49 James DOWNER 69.0
10 SWE 72 Benjamin HAMMERÖ 82.0
Full results here: https://www.manage2sail.com/en-US/event/c4ba93db-f3d5-46bd-b686-cf1c238b6822#!/