Wassaw Sound, 29 July 1996, Games of the XXVI Olympiad: Torben GRAEL (at the helm) and Marcelo FERREIRA of Brazil in action in the mixed keelboat Star race. Credit: Getty Images

Sailing first became an Olympic sport in Paris in 1900, where time handicaps were used to adjudicate the race. The race format and the classes of competing boats have changed frequently since then. Olympic racing is now conducted with boats categorised into one-design classes based on similar weights and measurements.

Discipline's origin

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 under the auspices of the Royal Yacht Squadron. The trophy was renamed The America's Cup, after the yacht, not after the United States, as is commonly thought. The trophy remained in the hands of the United States, and specifically New York Yacht Club, until 1983 when an Australian yacht finally broke the American stranglehold.

Olympic history

Sailing was first contested at the 1900 Olympics. 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 usually changed every few Olympiads as the popularity of various boats waxes and wanes. The trend has been towards smaller and smaller boats, with fewer crew members. In some of the early Olympics, crews had as many a 10-12 sailors. During the 2000 Sydney Games, only one event had a three-person crew (Soling), with six events contested by lone sailors.

Women have always been allowed to compete in Olympic sailing with men, but in 1984, separate sailing events were introduced exclusively for women. The Olympic sailing programme in 2000 consisted of men's, women's and mixed 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 equipment

Boom

A horizontal pole or spar to which the bottom of a sail is attached.

Catamaran

A boat with parallel twin hulls.

Centerboard

A movable, fin-shaped protrusion under the hull that prevents a boat from sliding sideways and is used to right capsized dinghies.

Dinghy

A small sailing boat, rowing boat or ship's tender.

Europe dinghy

A single-handed centreboard dinghy class, often called "the small Finn", which is the smallest Olympic-class boat and is used for women-only competition.

Finn

A single-handed centreboard dinghy class used for men-only competition in the Olympic Games.

49ER

A double-handed, high-performance dinghy class with a low hull and tiny wings, by skiff standards, used for open competition in the Olympic Games.

470

A double-handed dinghy class used for men's and women's competition in the Olympic Games.

Genoa

The larger triangular forward sail in a sloop-rigged yacht.

Jib

The smaller triangular forward sail in a sloop-rigged boat.

Keel

A fixed, fin-shaped protrusion on the bottom of the hull that prevents a boat from sliding sideways.

Keelboat

A sailing yacht with a fixed keel.

Kite

Colloquial for "spinnaker", a large, billowing, often colourful sail used to obtain greater boat speed during downwind sailing, usually set in front of or instead of the jib and carried by the 470, 49er and Soling Olympic classes.

Laser

A single-handed centreboard dinghy class, the most popular one-design class in the world, used for open competition in the Olympic Games.

Mainsail

The larger sail behind the mast.

Mainsheet

The rope which controls the movement of a mainsail.

Mistral

A one-person sailboard known by its brand name and used for men's and women's even