Sailing (sport)

The sport of sailing involves a competition of virtually every kind of wind-powered boat that is racing on a course or across open water. Also known as yacht racing, sailing as a sport can refer to all kinds of races and all kinds of boats—from large yachts with multimember crews to individual sailors in small dinghies.

Sailing also refers to the recreational use of wind-powered boats. In this case sailors must follow general rules for nautical safety, but otherwise, they can sail wherever the wind takes them.

Competitive sailing is another matter because it involves far more skill than simply lifting sails to capture the wind.

Origins and History

Although there are records of boat races at least as far back as ancient Egypt, the first known instance of sailing for sport took place in Holland in the early 1600s. In the early seventeenth century, Dutch sailors competed in boats of many different lengths, the longest of which were about sixty-five feet from bow to stern. The name for these boats, yaghtschip, which means "hunting ship," produced the English word yacht. In 1720 the first yacht club was founded in Cork, Ireland. Others sprang up in England and throughout the British colonies. The first yacht club in the United States was the New York Yacht Club (NYYC), founded in 1844.

The purpose of the NYYC was to race against other clubs. In 1851 the members built a 101-foot yacht, America, to compete against British sailors in a race around the Isle of Wight in England. The prize was known as the Hundred Guineas Cup. When America won, the trophy was rechristened America’s Cup to reflect the name of the schooner that took the prize home, not the country.

This prize has been called the world’s most difficult trophy to win because U.S. sailors held it for 132 years. In 1983 an Australian team finally ended the U.S. winning streak with a radical new design for the keel of the challenger’s boat. The Australian team concealed the wing-shaped keel behind drapes whenever the boat was out of the water. Even though the design made the boat faster most of the time, the series was initially tied at three wins apiece. In the final race the American boat, Liberty, led through most of the course, but the Australians managed to pass the American skipper, Dennis Conner, and then held off a charge in the final minutes. It may have been the most exciting America’s Cup finish ever. Four years later in Freemantle, Australia, Conner returned to win with a 4–0 sweep.

The America’s Cup remains the oldest and arguably the most prestigious of all international sailboat races. This event is a regatta, or a series of races. The team that won the trophy in the previous regatta defends the championship, while teams from all over the world compete with one another to be the challenger. Then the challenger and defender compete in a best-of-seven series in the defender’s home waters.

The beginning of sailing as a modern competitive sport might be traced to the first modern Olympics in 1896, which took place in Athens. Although weather conditions prevented competition that year, sailing was included as an Olympic sport and remains one today. Until the 1996 Olympics, the competition was called yachting events. In recent years the Olympic sailing competition has expanded to include five men’s events, four women’s events, and two events using mixed crews. The men’s and women’s events are identical, with one exception: Only the men’s competition includes a single-sailor, heavy dinghy event.

The International Sailing Federation (ISAF), which governs sailing races worldwide, was formed in 1907 as the International Yacht Racing Union. The original body created rules that were designed to prevent collisions between two competing boats on closed courses and in the open ocean.

The longest open ocean races trace their origins to Francis Chichester’s solo sail around the world in 1967. The next year, the Golden Globe race was created. In this competition single sailors compete to circle the entire world in the quickest time without stopping. Other long-distance solo open ocean races predate the Golden Globe, and other circumnavigation races involve teams.

Rules and Regulations

The Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS) are revised every four years, following the Olympic sailing competition. There are specific rules for every type of sailing competition, but the RRS has the same goal for each type of sailboat race. The regulations are designed to keep sailors safe and competitions fair. There are ninety-one rules in the RRS, but only fifteen apply to what happens when boats meet in the water. The goal of these rules is to avoid collisions. Because sailing races are contested over water, where people can drown, collisions are a risk that is taken very seriously.

Other RRS rules include definitions of marks and obstructions, starting errors, penalties, and interference with other boats, among other racing details. In many respects competitors are expected to police themselves.

Other regulations define types of races and boats—from open-ocean yachts to windsurfers. These definitions establish classes of competitive boats and the types of equipment that compete in the different classes.

There are literally hundreds of different racing classes. To regulate racing, the ISAF divides the boats into three groups: one-design, handicap, and rating classes.

In a one-design class, competitors use boats with identical or nearly identical dimensions and specifications. For example, a very popular one-design class includes boats that are 16-to-23 feet in length. These mass-produced boats are comparatively inexpensive and, in theory at least, provide a good test of a sailor’s or crew’s skill. If the boats are identical, then any advantage in speed presumably comes from the skill of the sailors, not from the technology that went into creating the craft. Handicap classes pit different types of boats against one another. Some boats are given a time advantage, or handicap, that is designed, in theory, to make dissimilar boats equal for racing purposes. Rating classes apply formulas to the boats, incorporating length, the type of rigging, sail size and materials, and other factors. In rating boats, the ISAF may consider factors such as length and sail area, among others.

The ISAF sets regulations for classes and equipment in all forms of sailboat racing. The categories are Olympic, centerboard, keelboat, multihull, boards (meaning windsurfing), yacht, offshore, and radio-controlled sailing. Each category breaks down into multiple subcategories, each with specified equipment and rules governing competition. For example, the Olympic status includes eight types of one-design boats. The International 470 class is a centerboard boat with two crew members. Each competing boat conforms to specific guidelines for length, beam, weight, sail size, spinnaker size, and hull material, among other craft specifications.

There is occasional overlap between the ISAF categories, such as the 470 class, an Olympic boat that is also in the centerboard category. Under ISAF regulations there are forty different centerboard boats, twenty-nine different keelboats, fifteen different multihull configurations, thirteen different boards, twelve types of yachts, and four types of radio sailboats. Additionally, the ISAF provides equipment and racing regulations for offshore and oceanic (any race longer than eight hundred miles) racing.

Ultimately, the many rules and regulations that govern the numerous forms of sailboat racing have simple, common goals. They establish agreed-upon right-of-way rules for races, and they determine both eligibility for races and how races are organized. In addition they provide a mechanism for resolving disputes.

Finally, different types of races have their own rules and regulations. Match races, team races, and fleet races involve different numbers of sailors, boats, and locations. Competing in these different types of races demands different strategies and tactics from the competitors.

Strategy and Tactics

The three basic types of races—fleet, match, and team racing—call for different approaches by the competitors. Typically, courses are large triangles marked by buoys on the water that force sailors to sail upwind, downwind, and reaching, which means "across the wind." However, some races are a quick dash between buoys on a lake or river. The tactics and overall strategy of the competitors vary according to the type of competition.

In fleet racing a number of comparable boats race around a course at the same time. There may be hundreds of boats in a fleet race. One type of fleet race involves one-design boats. Another pits different types and sizes of boats against one another. In this latter case the boats are handicapped either through adjusted scoring or by having faster boat classes start later than slower boat classes.

Match racing pits two essentially identical boats against one another on a course; the America’s Cup and the Olympic dinghy races are both match races. The goal in a match race is to cross the finish line first. In this case the strategy may not be to sail as fast as possible but to jockey for position in order to be victorious. Because regattas involve more than one race, the overall time is not as important as accumulating points for individual victories.

Team racing pits teams with two to four boats against one another. A team race is in some ways similar to a match race, except that the winner is determined by total points from all of the team boats in the race. The boat that finishes first receives one point, second receives two points, and if, for example, there are four boats in the competition, the last one gets four points. The team with the lowest score wins. Therefore, a three-boat team that takes second, third, and fourth (total: nine points) will triumph over a team that takes first, fifth, and sixth (total: twelve points).

The strategies and tactics used in competitive sailing are as many and varied as types of boats, types of races, and wind and water conditions. In very broad terms, competitive strategies involve understanding the race course, understanding the competition, and learning about local conditions, meaning currents and tides, the vagaries of local weather, and wind predictions. The racer’s tactics are the means he or she uses to implement the strategy. In each case a tremendous amount of skill is required.

Professional Leagues and Series

Although there are professionals who sail or work in crews during major races, competitive sailing is generally considered an amateur sport. The Summer Olympics is the most important competition for one-person and two-person dinghies, multihull boats, windsurfers, and skiff races. The Paralympics includes one-, two- and three-person keelboat events.

Other well-known and long-standing races are the America’s Cup and Cowes Week in Great Britain, both of which, like the Olympics, are categorized as short-course races. A number of so-called offshore races likewise have long histories, including the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac on Lake Michigan, the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in Australia, the Governor’s Cup overnight race on Chesapeake Bay, and the long, arduous, around-the-world crew sailing races. The most famous global competitions are the Volvo Ocean Race (previously known as the Whitbread Round the World), the former Global Challenge (called "the world’s toughest yacht race" while it was still being contested), and the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. There are many other oceangoing races, some of them solo competitions across the Atlantic Ocean and others all the way around the world, notably the Vendee Globe solo circumnavigation race.

Popularity

Generally speaking, sailing as a sport has traditionally been confined to wealthy individuals who belonged to yacht clubs and could afford the expensive boats. However, the introduction of mass-produced, one-design sailboats and windsurfing boards has broadened the sport’s appeal to some extent. Nonetheless, the requirements of the sport, such as access to an appropriate body of water and a storage space for the equipment, naturally limit the popularity of sailboat racing and recreational sailing alike.

As a spectator sport, sailing is much less popular than other mainstream sporting events. For example, in September 2013 America’s Cup match races were televised from San Francisco Bay. The audience was around one million viewers. This was large for a yacht race but far smaller than any comparable championship series for most other sports.

Worldwide, sailing is ranked forty-second as a spectator sport, according to British economist Michael Brown, who calculated global audience interest for one hundred different sports (Brown, n. Pag.). Brown notes that the highest interest in sailing occurs during the warm months and in response to major events, such as dinghy competitions in the Summer Olympics and the regatta competitions during the America’s Cup races.

Bibliography

Bethwaite, Frank. High Performance Sailing: Faster Racing Techniques. Brookline: Thomas Reed, 2011. Print.

Blackburn, Michael. Sailing Fitness and Training. Seattle: CreateSpace, 2015. Print.

Brown, Michael. "Biggest Global Sports." Biggest Global Sports, 2015. Web. 11 Nov. 2015 <http://www.biggestglobalsports.com/>.

Colgate, Steve. Performance Sailing and Racing. Camden: International Marine/Ragged Mountain, 2012. Print.

Cort, Adam, and Richard Stearns. Getting Started in Sailboat Racing, 2nd ed.Camden: International Marine/Ragged Mountain, 2013. Print.

Perry, Dave. Understanding the Racing Rules of Sailing Through 2016. Portsmouth: U.S. Sailing Association, 2012. Print.

Romano, Martin. Sailing: An Introduction to Sailing and Yachting. Seattle: Amazon Digital Services, 2015. Electronic.

U.S. Sailing Association. Sailor’s Guide to the Racing Rules. Portsmouth: U.S. Sailing Association, 2013. Print.