Marine Forum

Olympic Yacht Races

Anonymous user

15 August 2008 18:24:12

Joined: Unknown | Posts: Unknown

Sailing
As of 8 AUG 2008

Origin of Sailing
Sailing, also called yachting, has been practised since antiquity as a means of transport. In the modern sense, yachting probably originated in the Netherlands, and the word seems to come from the Dutch "jaght" or "jaght schip", probably a light, fast naval craft.

The sport was brought to England by King Charles II in the mid-1600s after his exile to Holland. International yacht racing began in 1851 when a syndicate of members of the New York Yacht Club built a 101-foot schooner named America. The yacht was sailed to England where it won a trophy called the Hundred Guineas Cup in a race around the Isle of Wight. The trophy was renamed The America's Cup and remained in the hands of the United States until 1983, when an Australian yacht finally brought to an end the New York Yacht Club's 132-year winning streak.

Outside of the America's Cup, yacht racing developed around the world, most often as a Sunday recreation for fishing boats. The creation of the International Yacht Racing Union in 1907 was the first step in developing the worldwide sport of sailing. An ever increasing range of materials and designs has seen sailing develop rapidly over the last 100 years, with mass-produced one-design boats helping the sport spread into all corners of the globe, whilst at the other end of the spectrum, the state-of-the-art yachts have become more and more spectacular. The development and popularization of windsurfers, skiffs and multihulls have pushed back the boundaries for sailing's thrill seekers, whilst the Olympic Games, the America's Cup and increasingly the great ocean races and record breakers continue to provide the sport with new heroes.

Sailing Today
Sailing is one of the world's most popular sports enjoyed by young and old. It's an incredibly varied and diverse sport, which incorporates an enormous range of boats, venues and competition formats. In recent years, the improvements in mass construction have helped the sport spread its reach around the world, and sailing has never been more accessible than it is today.

Sailing at the Olympic Games
Sailing made its Olympic debut in 1900, although the race format and the classes of competing boats have changed significantly since then, reflecting the global spread of the sport as sailing has become more accessible around the world. Olympic racing is now conducted with boats categorised into one-design classes based on similar weights and measurements.

Sailing was first contested at the 1900 Olympic Games. It made its next Olympic appearance in 1908 and has been on every Olympic programme since that year. Sailing has had a varied programme that is changed as the popularity of various boats waxes and wanes.

In the early Olympics, sailing was dominated by bigger boats, sometimes with as many as 10-12 sailors, and time handicaps were used to adjudicate the races. Starting from 1924 and increasingly from the 1950s onwards, the trend has been towards smaller and smaller one-design boats with fewer crew members. In the last 20 years, equipment trials have resulted in several new boats, reflecting the latest developments in the sport.

During the 2004 Athens Games, only one event had a three-person crew (Yngling), with five events contested by lone sailors. Currently the line up of boats is a mixture between classes with a long and distinguished history, like the Star and the Finn, and those reflecting the design and technology advances in the sport, such as the 49er.

Women have always been allowed to compete in Olympic sailing with men, but in 1988, separate sailing events were introduced exclusively for women. The Olympic sailing programme in 2004 consisted of men's, women's and open events.
In effect, sailing made its Olympic debut in Sydney, as it became the first Olympic sport to make a name change. The sport had always been called yachting in the past.

Sailing in People's Republic of China
At the beginning of the 1950s, the sport of sailing emerged in China. Some sailing clubs were founded in the coastal cities in the 1960s, and they became the bases of this sport in China.

In 1983, sailing for the first time was listed as a sport in the 5th National Games in China. Afterwards, more international exchange programs for sailing were promoted with more foreign professionals and sailors visiting China and giving lectures on the sport. Then, the national sailing team was founded, and some sailors and coaches were sent abroad for further study and training.

Sailing started late in China, but in some classes, it has become one of the top teams in Asia and even around the world, after the rapid development in the last twenty years. Till now, Chinese sailors have won more than 20 gold medals in Asia and the World Championships. Also, Chinese sailors have held the first place of several events of the Asian Games. In the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, Chinese sailor Zhang Xiaodong won the silver medal for the Women's Windsurfer event. Li lishan, from HongKong China, won the gold medal for the Women's Windsurfer event in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, which rewrote the history that no Asian had won an Olympic sailing gold medal. Chinese sailor Yinjian won the silver medal for the Women's Windsurfer event at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. In 2006, Xu lijia won the gold medal at the Laser Radial World Championship in California, U.S.A..

For the 29th Olympic Games, which are going to be held in Beijing. Chinese sailors are expected to stage good performances on the water of their homeland.

http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/Schedule/SA_2008-08-15.shtml

Re: Olympic Yacht Races

Anonymous user

18 August 2008 11:23:21

Joined: Unknown | Posts: Unknown

cheers for that

Re: Olympic Yacht Races

Julianne2010

14 October 2010 08:19:42

Joined: 14 October 2010 08:16:44 | Posts: 1

Thanks for the information, I’ll be making the necessary changes thanks to your tips. I enjoyed the post, you have a nice site. I hope you will post a better post after this. Keep posting.
[url=http://www.seadreamyachtclub.com]SeaDream Yacht Club[/url]