Sailing at the 1908 Summer Olympics
| Sailing at the Games of the IV Olympiad |
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1908 Gold Medal (Obverse and Reverse)
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| Venues |
Ryde, Isle of Wight Hunters Quay, Scotland |
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| Dates | First race: 27 July 1908 (Ryde) Last race: 29 July 1908 First race: 11 August 1908 (Hunters Quay) Last race: 12 August 1908 |
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| Sailors | 64 Male and 2 Female (Documented) from 5 countries | |||||||||||||||
| Boats | 14 | |||||||||||||||
| Top ranked countries | ||||||||||||||||
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| Royal Victoria Yacht Club | |
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Clubhouse of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club, Ryde, 1909
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| General information | |
| Status | Complete |
| Type | Clubhouse |
| Town or city | Ryde |
| Country |
 GBR
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| Coordinates | 50°43′58.92″N 1°9′44.91″W / 50.7330333°N 1.1624750°WCoordinates: 50°43′58.92″N 1°9′44.91″W / 50.7330333°N 1.1624750°W |
| Elevation | Sealevel |
| Construction started | 1846 |
| Client | Royal Victoria Yacht Club |
| Owner | Prince Consort Building |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Italianate style Regency architecture |
| Royal Clyde Yacht Clubhouse | |
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The Clubhouse of the Royal Clyde Yacht Club Clyde at Hunter Quay (GBR) was made available for the Organizing Committee of the B.O.C. and the Clyde Corinthian Yacht Club for the 12 Metre Matches.
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| General information | |
| Status | Complete |
| Type | Hotel & Clubhouse |
| Town or city | Hunters Quay |
| Country |
GBR
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| Coordinates | 55°58′11.31″N 4°54′31.78″W / 55.9698083°N 4.9088278°W |
| Elevation | Sealevel |
Sailing/Yachting is an Olympic sport starting from the Games of the 1st Olympiad (1896 Olympics in Athens, Greece). With the exception of 1904 and possible 1916 sailing was always a part of the Olympic program. 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.
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
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:
The following course areas were used during the 1908 Olympic sailing regattas:
A maximum of 2 boats per country per class was allowed.
Source:
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.
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