Sailing at the 1908 Summer Olympics

Sailing/Yachting is an Olympic sport starting from the Games of the 1st Olympiad (1896 Olympics in Athens, Greece). With the exception of the 1904 and the canceled 1916 Summer Olympics, sailing has always been included on the Olympic schedule. The Sailing program of 1908 was open for a total of five sailing classes (disciplines), but actually only four Sailing events were contested. The planned venue of all races, named matches, was Ryde, Isle of Wight.

Venue
At the 1907 The Hague Conference of the IOC Ryde at the Isle of Wight was appointed to host the sailing regattas, for all classes, of the games of the IVth Olympiad. However, when there were only two British entries for the 12 Metre matches, and both yacht were located at the Firth of Clyde, the decision was made to use Hunters Quay as a second venue.

Royal Victoria Yacht Club, Ryde
The RVYC was founded on 24 May 1845 by Prince Albert to give Queen Victoria a Yacht Club which she was entitled to enter as a mere female!

For the Olympic matches the race committee used the available shipping buoys as marks for the courses. for the classes the following course lengths were used:
 * 6 Metre: 13 nmi
 * 7 Metre: 13 nmi
 * 8 Metre: 16 nmi

Clyde Corinthian Yacht Club, Hunters Quay

 * 12 Metre: 26 nmi

Course areas
The following course areas were used during the 1908 Olympic sailing regattas:

Overview
A maximum of 2 boats per country per class was allowed.

Countries
Source:

Classes (equipment)
Source: Although one of the oldest organized sporting activities, sailing in the early first part of the 20th century was not uniformly organized. This had a lot to do with national traditions as well as with the fact that there were no standardized boat types with uniform building instructions and measurements. Also a lot of development was done in the area of boat design and boat building. The shape of a boat, specifically its length, its weight and its sail area, are major parameters that determine the boat's speed. Several initiatives were started to create a formula that made it possible to have boats race each other without having to calculate the final result. But the different countries initially could not agree on an international system. At the Olympics of 1900 it was clear that sailing was not ready for international competition, and something had to be done.

In 1906 international meetings were organize to solve the problem. Finally in Paris, October 1907 the first International Rule was ratified. Delegates from this meeting went on to form the International Yacht Racing Union (IYRU), the precursor to the present International Sailing Federation (ISAF).

The agreed formula gives a result in meters (Metre). During the meeting in 1907 the IOC made the decision to open the 1908 Summer Olympics for the following Metre classes:

Race schedule
Source:

Other information
During the Sailing regattas at the 1908 Summer Olympics among others the following persons were competing in the various classes:
 * , Johan Anker, Multiple Olympic competitor and designer of many Metre yachts as well as the 1948 Olympic Dragon, in the 8 Metre Fram
 * , Duchess of Westminster as owner and extra crewmember of the 8 Metre Sorais
 * , William Dudley Ward in the 8 Metre Sorais
 * , Harald Wallin in Vinga