The sport of sailing involves a variety of competitive
sailing
Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (land yacht) over a chosen cou ...
formats that are sanctioned through various sailing federations and
yacht club
A yacht club is a sports club specifically related to yachting.
Description
Yacht clubs are mostly located by the sea, although there some that have been established at a lake or riverside locations. Yacht or sailing clubs have either a mar ...
s. Racing disciplines include matches within a fleet of sailing craft, between a pair thereof or among teams. Additionally, there are specialized competitions that include setting speed records. Racing formats include both closed courses and point-to-point contests; they may be in sheltered waters, coast-wise or on the open ocean. Most competitions are held within defined classes or ratings that either entail one type of sailing craft to ensure a contest primarily of skill or rating the sailing craft to create
classifications or
handicaps.
On water, a sailing competition among multiple vessels is a
regatta, which usually consists of multiple individual races, where the boat crew that performs best in over the series of races is the overall winner. There is a broad variety of kinds of races and sailboats used for racing from
large yacht to
dinghy racing
Dinghy racing is a competitive sport using dinghies, which are small boats which may be rowboats, have an outboard motor, or be sailing dinghies. Dinghy racing has affected aspects of the modern sailing dinghy, including hull design, sail materia ...
. Much racing is done around
buoys or similar marks in protected waters, while some longer offshore races cross open water. All kinds of boats are used for racing, including small
dinghies
A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed by a larger vessel for use as a tender. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor. Some are rigged for sailing but they differ from sailing dinghies, which ...
,
catamarans, boats designed primarily for
cruising, and purpose-built raceboats. The
Racing Rules of Sailing
The Racing Rules of Sailing (often abbreviated to RRS) govern the conduct of yacht racing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, model boat racing, dinghy racing and virtually any other form of racing around a course with more than one vessel while powered b ...
govern the conduct of yacht racing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, model boat racing, dinghy racing and virtually any other form of racing around a course with more than one vessel while powered by the wind.
The
Barcolana regatta
The Barcolana (slo.: Barkovljanka) is a historic international sailing regatta organized by the yacht club Società Velica di Barcola e Grignano. It takes place every year in the Gulf of Trieste on the second Sunday of October. The Barcolana is ...
of the
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
yacht club Società Velica di
Barcola
Barcola is a maritime neighbourhood of Trieste, Italy. It is a popular tourist place with beaches and long promenades, near the Habsburg-established Miramare Castle.
Barcola is highly valued for the high quality of life and the free access to the ...
e Grignano is currently the Guinness World Record holder as the "largest sailing race" with 2,689 boats and over 16,000 sailors at the starting line.
Membership
International federation
World Sailing (WS) is recognized by the
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
as the world governing body for the sport of sailing yacht racing. It was formed in 1904 as the International Yacht Racing Union and then called the International Sailing Federation until rebranding 2014.
National federations
Yacht clubs
![Windjammerparade](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Windjammerparade.jpg)
Many town yacht clubs maintain their own racing teams for both juniors and adults. Often several yacht clubs will get together to hold events that can include more than 100 entered boats per race making up the regatta. Although often both adults and juniors sail the same classes of boat.
Event disciplines
Fleet racing
Fleet
Fleet may refer to:
Vehicles
*Fishing fleet
*Naval fleet
*Fleet vehicles, a pool of motor vehicles
*Fleet Aircraft, the aircraft manufacturing company
Places
Canada
* Fleet, Alberta, Canada, a hamlet
England
* The Fleet Lagoon, at Chesil Beach ...
races can have anywhere from four boats to hundreds of boats in a race. A regatta must have at least three races to be counted. Each boat's place in each race is added to compile a final score. The lowest scorer wins.
Match racing
In
match racing
A match race is a race between two competitors, going head-to-head.
In sailboat racing it is differentiated from a fleet race, which almost always involves three or more competitors competing against each other, and team racing where teams consi ...
only two boats compete against each other. The best known competition of this type is the
America's Cup. The tactics involved in match racing are different from those of other races, because the objective is merely to arrive at the finish line before the opponent, which is not necessarily as fast as possible. The tactics involved at the start are also special.
Team racing
Team racing is most often between two teams of three boats each. It involves similar technique to match racing but has the added dimension that it is the overall scoring of the race that matters. In three on three team racing, this means that the team that scores ten or less points wins. For this reason, many tactics are used to advance teammates to make stable combinations for winning. The stable combinations most commonly sought are "Play one", which is 1-2-anything, "Play two" or 2-3-4, and "Play 4", a 1-4-5 combination. These are generally regarded as the best setups to win and the hardest for the opposing team to play offense against.
Speed Sailing
Is managed by World Speed Sailing Record Council
Wave riding
Is common to board sports.
Others
Both windsurfing and kiteboarding are experimenting with new formats.
Common race formats
Short course racing
Harbor or buoy races are conducted in protected waters, and are quite short, usually taking anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. All sorts of sailing craft are used for these races, including
keel-boat
A keelboat is a riverine cargo-capable working boat, or a small- to mid-sized recreational sailing yacht. The boats in the first category have shallow structural keels, and are nearly flat-bottomed and often used leeboards if forced in open wat ...
s of all sizes, as well as dinghies,
trailer sailor
A trailer sailer is a type of sailboat that has been designed to be easily transported using a boat trailer towed by an automobile. They are generally larger than a sailing dinghy.Royce, Patrick M.: ''Royces Sailing Illustrated'', pages 52-57. De ...
s,
catamarans, skiffs, sailboards, and other small craft.
This kind of race is most commonly run over one or more laps of a triangular course marked by a number of buoys. The course starts from an imaginary line drawn from a 'committee boat' to the designated 'starting' buoy or 'pin'. A number of warning signals are given telling the crews exactly how long until the race starts. The aim of each crew is to cross the start line at full speed exactly as the race starts. A course generally involves
tacking upwind to a 'windward' marker or buoy. Then bearing away onto a downwind leg to a second
jibe
A jibe (US) or gybe (Britain) is a sailing maneuver whereby a sailing vessel reaching downwind turns its stern through the wind, which then exerts its force from the opposite side of the vessel. Because the mainsail boom can swing acros ...
marker. Next another jibe on a second downwind leg to the last mark which is called the 'downwind mark' (or 'leeward mark'). At this mark the boats turn into wind once again to tack to the finish line.
The most famous and longest running of these events are:
*
Olympics
*
America's Cup
*
Cowes Week
Cowes Week ( ) is one of the longest-running regular regattas in the world. With 40 daily sailing races, up to 1,000 boats, and 8,000 competitors ranging from Olympic and world-class professionals to weekend sailors, it is the largest saili ...
*
Mug Race
The Mug Race is an annual sailing race held on St. Johns River in the US state of Florida. Billed as the "World's Longest River Race", the course starts in Palatka and ends in Jacksonville. To compete, masts must be under 44 feet in order to c ...
Coastal/Inshore racing
Inshore racing is yacht racing not in protected waters but along and generally within sight of land or from land to nearby islands, as distinct from offshore racing across open water and oceans. The duration of races may be daylight only, overnight or passage races of several days. Some races, such as the
Swiftsure Yacht Race, are actually a group of inshore races of various distances along overlapping courses to allow for different classes and skills. Depending on location, stability and safety equipment requirements will be more extensive than for harbor racing, but less so than for offshore racing. Different levels of requirement for navigation, sleeping cooking and water storage also apply.
Offshore racing
Offshore yacht races are held over long distances and in open water; such races usually last for at least a number of hours. The longest offshore races involve a
circumnavigation
Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical body (e.g. a planet or moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth.
The first recorded circumnavigation of the Earth was the Mage ...
of the world.
Some of the most famous offshore races are as follows
* ''
Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race''
* ''
Transpacific Yacht Race
The Transpacific Yacht Race (Transpac) is a biennial offshore yacht race held in odd-numbered years starting off the Pt. Fermin buoy in San Pedro, California and ending off Diamond Head in Hawaii, a distance of around . In even-numbered years the P ...
''
* ''
Fastnet Race
The Fastnet Race is a biennial offshore yacht race organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club of the United Kingdom with the assistance of the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes and the City of Cherbourg in France.
The race is named after the Fast ...
''
* ''
Bermuda Race
The Newport Bermuda Race, commonly known as the ''Bermuda Race'', is a biennial, 635 nautical miles (1175 km) sailing yacht race from Newport, Rhode Island to the British island of Bermuda. According to its website, the Race is the oldest r ...
''
* ''
Hamilton Island Race Week
Hamilton Island Race Week is a keelboat regatta set against the backdrop of the Whitsunday Islands, on Queensland's Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reef ...
''
* ''
Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac
The Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac is a annual yacht race starting in Lake Michigan off Chicago, Illinois, and ending in Lake Huron off Mackinac Island, Michigan. It is hosted and managed by the Chicago Yacht Club. The "Mac" (as it is know ...
''
* ''Governors Cup''
* ''South Atlantic Race''
Oceanic racing
Several fully crewed round-the-world races are held, including:
*
The Ocean Race (formerly known as the Whitbread Round the World Race and the Volvo Ocean Race)
*
Global Challenge
The Global Challenge (not to be confused with Global Challenge Award) was a round the world yacht race run by Challenge Business, the company started by Sir Chay Blyth in 1989. It was held every four years, and took a fleet of one-design steel y ...
*
Clipper Round the World Race
The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is a biennial race that takes paying amateur crews on one or more legs of a circumnavigation of the globe in 11 specially-designed identical yachts owned by Clipper Ventures. Professional skippers and addi ...
South African yacht clubs organise the South Atlantic Race (the former Cape to Rio race), the Governor's Cup from Cape Town to St. Helena Island, and a race between Durban and Mauritius.
Single-handed ocean yacht racing began with the race across the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
by William Albert Andrews and Josiah W. Lawlor in 1891; however, the first regular single-handed ocean race was the
Single-Handed Trans-Atlantic Race
The Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race (STAR) is an east-to-west yacht race across the North Atlantic. When inaugurated in 1960, it was the first single-handed ocean yacht race; it is run from Plymouth in England to Newport, Rhode Island in th ...
, first held in 1960. The first round-the-world yacht race was the ''
Sunday Times Golden Globe Race'' of 1968–1969, which was also a
single-handed race with the only winner,
Robin Knox-Johnston
Sir William Robert Patrick Knox-Johnston (born 17 March 1939) is a British sailor. In 1969, he became the first person to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the globe. Along with Sir Peter Blake, he won the second Jules Ve ...
on ''Suhaili''; this inspired the present-day
Velux 5 Oceans Race The Velux 5 Oceans Race was a round-the-world single-handed yacht race, sailed in stages, managed by Clipper Ventures since 2000. Its most recent name comes from its main sponsor Velux. Originally known as the BOC Challenge, for the title sponsor ...
(formerly the BOC Challenge / Around Alone) and the
Vendée Globe
-->
The Vendée Globe is a single-handed (solo) non-stop round the world yacht race. The race was founded by Philippe Jeantot in 1989, and since 1992 has taken place every four years. It is named after the Département of Vendée, in France ...
. Single-handed racing has seen a great boom in popularity in recent years.
There is some controversy about the legality of sailing single-handed over long distances, as the
navigation rules require "that every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper lookout..."; single-handed sailors can only keep a sporadic lookout, due to the need to sleep, tend to navigation, etc.
Other races
Certain races do not fit in the above categories. One such is the
Three peaks yacht race in the
UK which is a team competition involving sailing, cycling and running.
Classes and ratings
Many design factors have a large impact on the speed at which a boat can complete a course, including the size of a boat's
sails, its length, and the weight and shape of its hull. Because of these differences, it can be difficult to compare the skills of the sailors in a race if they are sailing very different boats. For most forms of yacht racing, one of two solutions to this problem are used: either all boats are required to race on a first to finish basis (these groups of boats are called classes), or a
handicapping system is used which implements correction factors.
Manufacturer controlled classes
Each class has a detailed set of specifications that must be met for the boat to be considered a member of that class. Some classes (e.g.the
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fi ...
) have very tight specifications ensuring that there is virtually no difference between the boats (except for age) - these classes are sometimes called ''strict one-design''.
In one-design racing all boats must conform to the same standard, the ''class rules'', thus emphasizing the skill of the skipper and crew rather than having the results depend on equipment superiority.
These kind of classes are most commonly brand linked to brands with
Laser Performance
LaserPerformance is an Anglo-American dinghy manufacturer- the world's largest producer of small sailboats. LaserPerformance manufactures many sailboats including: Laser, Sunfish, Laser Pico, Bug, Laser Vago, Laser Bahia, Club FJ, Club 420, Z ...
,
RS Sailing
RS Sailing is an international designer, builder and supplier of sailboats and dinghies and associated goods and services supported by a worldwide dealer network and class associations.
The current RS range contains 19 dinghies and related par ...
,
Melges and
J/Boats range being good examples.
Measurement controlled classes
Popular International Classes include the
Optimist,
470
__NOTOC__
Year 470 ( CDLXX) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Severus and Iordanes (or, less frequently, year 1223 ' ...
,
Snipe
A snipe is any of about 26 wading bird species in three genera in the family Scolopacidae. They are characterized by a very long, slender bill, eyes placed high on the head, and cryptic/ camouflaging plumage. The ''Gallinago'' snipes have a ...
and
Etchells
The International Etchells Class is a racing class of one-design sailing boats, designed by American Skip Etchells.
Production
The first 36 boats were built by Skip Etchells and the Old Greenwich Boat Company between 1967 to 1969. In the ea ...
.
Measurement classes box rule
A ''box rule'' specifies a maximum overall size for boats in the class, as well as features such as stability. Competitors in these classes are then free to enter their own boat designs, as long as they do not exceed the box rule. No handicap is then applied.
*
International One Metre
*
Class 40
*
TP 52
The Transpac 52 (TP52) is a class of yacht used for competitive 52 Super Series yacht racing, and the Audi MedCup previously, besides the world championship of the class. The class is recognised by the International Sailing Federation which en ...
*
Open 60
Measurement development classes
*
Moth
Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...
*
International 14
The International 14 is a British racing sailboat, crewed by two sailors. The class was established in 1928.
The boat is a developmental sailing class and so the design rules and the boats themselves have changed dramatically over time to keep ...
Measurement formula-based classes
A construction class is based on a formula or set of restrictions which the boat's measurements must fit to be accepted to the class. Resulting boats are all unique, yet (ideally) relatively close in size and performance. Perhaps the most popular and enduring construction formula is
The Metre Rule, around which several still popular classes were designed. With the 12 metre being the most famous due to its involvement in the
America's Cup.
Handicap racing
When all the yachts in a race are not members of the same class, then a handicap is used to adjust the times of boats. The handicap attempts to specify a "normal" speed for each boat, usually based either on measurements taken of the boat, or on the past record of that kind of boat. Each boat is timed over the specified course. After it has finished, the handicap is used to adjust each boat's finishing time. The results are based on this sum.
Popular handicapping systems include
*
ORC
An Orc (or Ork) is a fictional humanoid monster like a goblin. Orcs were brought into modern usage by the fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially '' The Lord of the Rings''. In Tolkien's works, Orcs are a brutish, aggressive, ugl ...
i
*
ORC
An Orc (or Ork) is a fictional humanoid monster like a goblin. Orcs were brought into modern usage by the fantasy writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially '' The Lord of the Rings''. In Tolkien's works, Orcs are a brutish, aggressive, ugl ...
Club
*
IRC (Sailing)
IRC is a system of handicapping sailboats and yachts for the purpose of racing. It is managed by the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) in the United Kingdom through their dedicated Rating Office, and the Union Nationale pour la Course au Large (UNCL ...
*
PHRF
Performance Handicap Racing Fleet (PHRF) is a handicapping system used for yacht racing in North America. It allows dissimilar classes of sailboats to be raced against each other. The aim is to cancel out the inherent advantages and disadvantages ...
*
Portsmouth Yardstick
The Portsmouth Yardstick (PY) or Portsmouth handicap scheme is a term used for a number of related systems of empirical handicapping used primarily in small sailboat racing.
The handicap is applied to the time taken to sail any course, and the han ...
Earlier popular rating systems include
IOR The abbreviation IOR may refer to:
* Importer of record, term in import and export
* inclusive or - as opposed to XOR (exclusive OR)
* Independent Order of Rechabites
* Index of refraction
* India Office Records
* Indian Ocean Region
* Indian Ocea ...
and
IMS.
Gender criteria
The majority of sailing events are "open" events in which males and females compete together on equal terms either as individuals or part of team. Sailing has had female only World Championships since the 1970s to encourage participation and now hosts more than 30 such World Championship titles each year. For the 2016 Olympics, compulsory mixed gender in the event were added for the first time.
Additional criteria
In addition the following criteria are sometimes applied to events:
* Age
* Nationality
* Disabled Classification
* Sailor Classification
See also
*
Dinghy racing
Dinghy racing is a competitive sport using dinghies, which are small boats which may be rowboats, have an outboard motor, or be sailing dinghies. Dinghy racing has affected aspects of the modern sailing dinghy, including hull design, sail materia ...
*
Former Olympic sailing classes
The Olympic sailing classes have been used in the sport of Sailing/Yachting during the Olympic Summer Games since 1896. Since then, 46 different classes have been used.
History
Over a period of more than 112 years, in a sport that uses complex tec ...
*
Olympic sailing classes
The Olympic sailing classes have been used in the sport of Sailing/Yachting during the Olympic Summer Games since 1896. Since then, 46 different classes have been used.
History
Over a period of more than 112 years, in a sport that uses complex te ...
*
Retired after finishing
References
External links
International Paralympic Committee page on sailing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sailing (Sport)
Summer Olympic sports