2026 Dervio Europeans statistics

By Steve Stroebel, Int. F18 Class Vice-President

Presentation

Following are the participation statistics from the 2026 F18 European Championship held on Lake Como at Dervo, Italy from July 6-10, 2026, with 109 boats and 218 competitors representing 17 countries. Besides the 13 European countries, there were representatives from Argentina, Chile, Israel and the United States.

Highlights

Attendence

• Great attendence with 109 boats – higher than we expected.

• Nine countries were represented in the top 20 and six countries in the top 10 showing good competitive strength across many countries.
• Total of 17 countries were represented with the largest delegation from Germany with 21 boats.

• South America was the 2^nd best represented continent with 12 competitors from Argentina and Chile.
• North America was the 3^rd best represented continent with 5 competitors.

• Belgium increased their European championship total to two with the first instance of a son following his father as European Champion.  Henri Demesmaeker with Swede Rasmus Rosengren are the 2026 European F18 Champions following Patrick Demesmaeker winning in 2016 in Brest, France.
• Two of the top three finishers (2^nd and 3^rd) were Italian teams whose home clubs are on Lake Como which could indicate the importance of local knowledge in this event.
• The top three country delegations with the most depth based on number of boats in the top 20 and finishes were:
  – France  4 boats with average finish of 9.75
  – Italy     3 boats with average finish of 6.0
  – Sweden 3 boats with average finish of 15.3

Special Trophies

• Of the special trophy categories, the Family division with 13 teams was the most competitive with one team (Italian twin brothers, Andreas and Mateo Vigano) placing 2^nd, two teams in the top 10 and four teams in the top 20.
• The Masters Division was also strong with 29 teams and two placing in the top 20 and one team from Argentina placing 5th.
• The number of mixed teams was lower than Netherlands worlds (21% vs 26%) but the top mixed team placed 19^th.
• The Age Distribution Charts show:
  – For both helm and crew shows declining trend in 27-35 age range which is a key group especially for helms.
  – The strongest age groups are 46-55 and 56-65 with the 56-65 group increasing as a percentage of the fleet the most.
  – The crew are fairly equally balanced between the decades except that the <26 age is the largest group.
  -Though the number is low it is interesting that for the >66 age group the number of helms and crew are equal.

Boats

• Three boat builders were represented in the top 20 boats – you can do well racing any of these designs!
  – Goodall had 15 boats in the top 20 with one of those boats a 7-year old C2 who placed 3rd. 
  – The other builders in the top 20 were Cirrus and Nacra. 
  – The new Cirrus R3 showed good performance with three boats in the top 20.
• There were 3 top 10 boats that were from 4 to 7 years old showing that you do not need the newest boat to be very competitive.
• The oldest boat that was in the top 10 was a 2019 Goodall C2 that placed 3rd so you can reach the podium with a 7-year-old boat.

Sails

• 14 different sailmakers were represented in the fleet:
  – 98% of mainsails were 7 sailmakers (Goodall, 1D, Performance, NextGen, Kangaroo, Air Sails & GP Sails).
  – Goodall mainsails were on 9 of the top 10 boats with Air Sails the only other top 10 boat at 5^th place.
  – Four of these sailmakers placed in the top 20: Goodall on 15 of the boats, Performance on 2 boats, Air Sails on 2 boats and GP Sails on 1 boat.
  – 90% of gennakers were 6 sailmakers (Goodall, 1D, Performance, Kangaroo, NextGen, & Air Sails).
  – Goodall gennakers were on 7 of the top 10 boats with Air Sails, GP Sails and Oxo Sails each on one top 10 boat.
  – Six sailmakers placed in the top 20: Goodall on 12 of the boats, Air Sails on 3 boats, Performance on 2 boats, and Kangaroo, Oxo Sails and All Purpose Sails each on 1 boat. 

Though a lot of data is shown below, there are many other important factors to achieve good performance at a European Championships that are not reflected in this data.  These factors include racing experience, time on the water, good teamwork, good tactics, mental acuity, boat preparation, and many other factors.

Competitors profile

• There was incomplete reporting on the First Time Attendees resulting in the lower percentage compared with 2025 NED.
• For those teams who also competed in last year’s Worlds in The Netherlands, I compared each team’s results to determine who improved the most:
  – 1^st Most Improved GER 376 Garloff Langenbeck from 80^th to 45^th place
  – 2^nd Most Improved ARG 111 Christian Vilate from 55^th to 21^st place
  – 3^rd Most Improved Mixed & Family Team FIN 5 Mikko & Kirsikka Raisanen from 49^th to 19^th place

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Gender distribution

• There was a significant decrease in the percentage of women competitors from the previous World Championships in Europe (11% vs 22-33%) which is surprising.  But the number of women helms is good compared with the previous years.  It seems that the separate women helm trophy is working to attract women helms. 

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Age distribution

• Median Age = age when ½ of competitors are older and ½ are younger
• The helm median age has been steadily increasing from 2023 to 2026 from 50 to 52.
• Th crew median age was at the highest level for this championships.
• Again the oldest crew was Marius van Dam from NED at 70 years placing 10^th in the Gold Fleet with his son as the helm.
• Youngest helm (19 years) was Merel Baaksma from NED competing for the women helm trophy who placed 3^rd in the Youth Fleet and 32^nd in the Silver fleet.
• Youngest crew (13 years) was Paula Zylka from Germany sailing with her father who placed 21^st in the Silver Fleet.

• For the Europeans the crew are fairly equally balanced between the decades except that <26 is the largest group.
• Interesting that for the >66 group the number of helms and crew are equal. 
• Having so few helms in the 27-35 age range is concerning.

Here is the same data shown graphically normalized to percent of fleet and compared to the previous years to see trends. If the age groups less than 66 are equally balanced they would be about 20% so you can tell which age groups are strongest.

Helm age distribution

• In both age groups under 36 years old there was a significant decline in helms.
• At the Europeans a greater percent of helms moved into the 56-65 age range.
• Shows age 66 as when helms drop from sailing F18s.  Should we revise the master’s trophy definition to encourage more of these sailors to stick around a few more years?

Crew age distribution

• Europeans also showed a decline in the under 36 age groups for crew.

Total age distribution

• Shows declining trend in 27-35 range which is a key age group.
• The strongest age groups are 46-55 and 56-65.

Age distribution with results

For most of the following data we show results for the top 10 boats (9% of fleet) and top 20 boats (18% of fleet).

• For the helms the top 10 and top 20 are 14 years younger than the fleet overall showing that being younger was an advantage at this event.  Also the helms in the Gold fleet were 6 years younger than the Silver fleet.
• The median age for crew are very similar between the total fleet, top 10 and top 20 but the Silver fleet is 7 years older than the Gold fleet.

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Special award categories

• The top two competitive categories are
  
  – “Family” with a 2^nd place finish and four boats in the top 20.  This category consisted of:
  – 6 father/sons
  – 4 father/daughters
  -3 brothers
  demonstrating that F18 racing is a family affair!
  
  – “Masters” which is both helm and crew are over age 50 with a 12^th place finish, 2 boats in the top 20, 10 boats in the Gold fleet and a median of finish of 64.

• Since we change our definition of youth teams starting with the 2025 Worlds, I have included the data for U26 and U23.   For 2023-24, youth team is defined as under 23 years old.  Starting in 2025 is defined as under 26 years old.
• The masters group increased from 20% of the fleet in Netherlands to 27% at the Europeans.
• Mixed teams declined from 26% in the Netherlands to 21% at the Europeans but about same as Spain and Germany Worlds.
• The U23 and U26 team participation was in line with the previous Worlds held in Europe.

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Boats

Models

• All 5 active boat builders represented in the fleet with Goodall having a 49.5% share of the fleet.
• Goodall almost swept the top 10 with 9 boats (one C2 and eight Akurra’s). Cirrus was the only other manufacturer in the top 10 which is a good showing for its new design (R3).

• Goodall Akurra’s were 39% of the fleet, a significant increase from 29% at the Netherland’s Worlds.
• In this very competitive fleet we had three boat builders in the top 20.  Besides the dominant Akurra’s, there were three Cirrus R3s and two Nacra Evolutions.
• One older generation boat, the Goodall C2 was in the top ten placing 4^th! 
• There were 5 (9%) C2s in the Gold Fleet.

Age

• There were 3 top 10 boats that were from 4 to 7 years old showing that you do not need the newest boat to be very competitive.
• The oldest boat that was in the top 10 was a 2019 Goodall C2 that placed 3rd so you can reach the podium with a 7-year old boat.
• 74% of the fleet were 2020 or newer boats where there has been a lot of stability in the designs.

• Median age for the whole fleet was consistent + one year with the past four events.
• The median age for the Gold Fleet was 3.0 years while for the Silver Fleet it was 5.0 years.

• New boats are defined as build year same as Europeans and one year earlier per hull ID number.
• 28% of the total fleet are new with Goodall Akurra taking the largest market share (57%).
• Cirrus with their new R3 has the second largest market share of new boats at the Europeans.

Weight

The next tables include comparison of 2026 Europeans with the four previous Worlds for the boat weight and boat corrector weights.  The 2026E column is the Europeans and 2026A is the Worlds in Australia.

• The median weight at 181.4 KG is the lowest seen at five events compared above.
• 31 boats (28% of the fleet) weighed below 180 kg so had to carry corrector weights to bring the boat to 180 kg which is up significantly from previous events.
  – 9 of these boats were 2025 and 2026 models distributed across most of the brands. Are the manufacturers building the boats lighter?
  – The corrector weights were weighed by the technical committee during boat inspection.
  – The presense of corrector weights on the dolphin striker was spot checked by the technical committee each racing day.
• The range of boat weight in the top ten ranged from 176.6 to 181.8 kg.
• 47 boats raced (43% of the fleet) in the boat + corrector weight range of 180-181 kg. 
• All boats that were lighter than 180 kg carried weight to bring them to 180 kg.  Four of these boats were in the top 10; 8 were in the top 20; 13 of these boats were in the Silver Fleet.  The median finish place for these boats was 45 – better than mid-fleet.
• There were 6 boats that weighed more than 185 kg and they had build years ranging from 2011 to 2026.  The best finish for these boats was 49.  Two of these boats were in the Gold Fleet and four in the Silver fleet.  These boats included 2 Goodalls, 2 Scorpions, 1 Cirrus and the Hobie Wildcat.
• There was one boat at the absolute minimum weight allowed (173 kg) which is unusual.

• The top two boats weighed 178 kg but they carried corrector weights to bring their boat to the minimum 180 kg (red line on the chart).
• The chart clearly shows all boats over 184 kg were in the bottom half of the fleet. This is more likely that newer teams to the class have purchased older and heavier boats rather than the weight of the boat is causing their results.

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Competitors weight

Here is the data on competitor weight:

• For this Europeans the team weight was similar to the Netherland and Spain Worlds but ~6-10 kg lighter than the Australia Worlds probably beause Fremantle has a reputation for stronger winds so teams selected to sail with more team weight.
• The number of boats carrying crew corrector weigh was similar to the Netherland’s Worlds.
• No teams had their crew compensation weight reduced because they were at the maximum of 7.5 kg.

 
The chart illustrates that there were more heavier teams in the bottom half of the fleet.

Average final ranking by weight bracket

The following charts were developed by Ad Noordzij. The left chart shows the data only for the 2026 Europeans and the right chart combines the data from all the Worlds and Europeans since 2017 for boats with decksweeper mainsails. The average final rankings are shown as a fraction of the entire fleet, meaning that 0.50 represents an average performance, less than 0.50 is a better than average performance and more than 0.50 is a worse than average performance. The left-hand scale shows the number of boats in the data.

• The most competitive crew weight bracket is / continues to be 155-160 kg even with these European Championships being a lighter wind event.
• Crews in an attractively large 30 kg crew weight range (140-170 kg) can be expected to be generally competitive.
• Event participation closely correlates with competitiveness, with teams weighing between 140 and 170 kg making up 83% of the fleet vs 89% at the Australian Worlds.

The following table compares the results in the above table between the Europeans and the fleet average over the past 10 years. The rankings in the table are normalized to a 100-boat fleet.

• Interesting that the 140-145 (a light range) and 170-175 kg (a heavy weight range) both performed significantly better at the Europeans though the number of boats was low in those ranges.

From Ad’s scatter diagram below, one can read that ALL of the top 15% of the finishers (top 30% of the gold fleet) during this 10-year period weighed between 140 kg and 170 kg. From that ranking point (15%) onward some over 170 kg teams start to appear.

• The first team weighing less than 140 kg appears only at about 31% of the top rankings which suggests that the class has not been able to attract competitive teams that weigh less than 140 kg.

Under 150 kg teams

Here is data on the teams that weighed under 150 KG and how they performed:

• At 25% of the fleet, there was the same percentage of teams less than 150 kg as in at the Worlds in the Netherlands.
• Five of the teams that were in the range of 140-150 kg performed well with 5 in the top 20 and one Italian team placed 3rd.
• 12 boats had their crew compensation weight eliminated because their boats were greater than 180 kg. The greatest gain was one boat that weighed 6.6 kg above minimum which eliminated the crew’s need to carry 1.35 kg. our of these boats were in the Gold Fleet with the best finish of 12^th place.
• Ten boats had some reduction in the compensation weight because their boat was greater than 180 kg.   

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Sails

Mainsails

• All the mainsails were decksweepers except for three that raced in the silver fleet.
• Here is the mainsail age distribution.

• 46% of the fleet had new mainsails (2025 & 2026 build year) compared with 41% in Netherlands.

• There were four different sailmakers in the top 20 with Goodall dominant with 75% of the mainsails and the other sailmakers were Air Sails, Performance and 1D.
• 92% of jibs down from 95% at 2025 Worlds were same sailmaker as mainsail so did not produce a chart for jibs.
• For the top 20 boats, 95% used the mainsail from their boat builder or associated sailmaker which I call brand loyalty (Nacra/Performance, Scorpion/1D, Windrush/NextGen, Goodall/Goodall, Cirrus/Air Sails). For the entire fleet this ratio was 83% up from 73% at the 2025 Worlds.

Spinnakers

• 52% of the fleet had new gennakers (2026 & 2025 build year).
• 68% of the fleet had gennakers made 2024 or newer.
• In both Top Ten and Top 20, the oldest gennaker was 4 years old (2023).

• There were six sailmakers (Goodall, Air Sails, Performance, All Purpose Sails, Kangaroo, Oxo Sails) represented in the top 20.
• 13 different gennaker sailmakers represented in fleet; up from 10 at Netherlands Worlds.
• For the top 20 boats, 85% used the gennaker from their boat builder or associated sailmaker which I call brand loyalty (Nacra/Performance, Scorpion/1D, Windrush/NextGen, Goodall/Goodall, Cirrus/Air Sails). For the entire fleet this ratio was 72% almost identical to the ratio for mainsails.

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Hosting and winning Nations

European Championships are only held when the F18 World Championships are held on a continent outside Europe.  In 2026 the Worlds were in Australia.

Belgium increases their European championship total to two tying with the USA.  Also very notable is that the new European Champion, Henri Demesmaeker is the son of the 2016 Champion, Patrick Demesmaeker.

Here is by country the distribution of F18 European hosts. Have your country added to this list by bidding to host a European Championship. The next European Championships will be in 2029 when the F18 Worlds are targeted to be in North America.