In the ancient Olympic Games from the 8th century B.C. until the 4th century A.D. there were no sailing events.

The Start of Olympic Yachting
At first of the modern Olympics at Athens, Greece in 1896, the organisers decided to have an exhibition regatta in connection with the Games. However, on the days when the series was to be sailed, storms prevented any racing and it was cancelled.

The organisers of the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris decided that they should have some yachting events and got some internationally scheduled events to be sailed at Le Havre, France. 4 large meter formula classes were scheduled and 10 boats from four nations competed. The yachting events were treated as a sideshow and the entries were all large yachts from European nations sailed by rich people with paid crews.

St. Louis, Missouri was the site of the Olympics in 1904 and since there was no suitable place to race the deep keel boats, no yachting events were scheduled. In 1906, Athens decided to hold an Olympics on their own but no yachting events were scheduled, and this was not considered an official Olympics. However, the British, French, and Germans agreed on a set of international racing rules in 1904 and this was the start of the improvement in yacht racing.

The first full-fledged Olympic yachting events were held at the 1908 Olympics in London, England. The British had 4 classes of formula boats with entries from 5 European nations. A nation could enter more than one boat in an event at this time. 13 boats participated.

In 1912, Stockholm held the Games with the yacht racing nearby at Nynas. There were to be two races for each of the 6, 8, 10 and 12- Metre classes and the points system was revised to 7-3-1 for each race - the first time that a biased system was used. 24 boats participated and even Russia sent an entry for this Olympics. The yachting events drew much more attention at these games than they had before. However, it was 8 years before another Olympics was held as World War I prevented the 1916 Olympics.

The 1920 Olympic yachting events were held at Ostend, Belgium in very heavy seas and marked the end of an era in Olympic sailing. The Belgians were going to have the usual 6, 8, 10 and 12-Meter classes with their big boats and paid crews and the six major European yachting nations sent entries. The international rules had been changed in 1919 and 1920 so they had to run separate events for the boats that qualified under these classes in both the old and the new rules. They also tried to attract four other meter classes up to the mammoth 40 meter class and only got one or two boats in each class. And to please everyone, they had an 18' centreboard class but Holland sent the only entry.

Of interest for our history of the Finn in the Olympic Games is that they also scheduled a single-handed or Monotype class but the only entries were two sailors from Holland. However, despite all the confusion and the multitude of classes, the Olympic yachting events were not restricted to the big formula classes with their professional crews.

The Reformation The Olympic Yachting events had been treated as a 'sideshow' for the wealthy Europeans and controlled primarily by the host country. The increasing interest and the confusion at the 1920 Olympics resulted in the International Olympic Congress placing the control of all future Olympic yachting events in the hands of the International Yachting Federation (later called the International Yacht Racing Union, now called the International Sailing Federation), which immediately set about to reform the Olympics. The following changes were made by the IYRU: There would be only three events.

They would be as follows: 1 - 8-Meter Class with a crew of five; 2 - 6-Meter Class with a crew of three; 3 - Less than 5 meter (16 feet) with a crew of one. All crew members had to be from the country represented. There could be only one entry from each nation. The host country would designate and furnish the singlehander so that even the poor nations could compete in the yachting events of the Olympics.

The 1924 Games of Paris was the first occasion in which the yachting was organised in anything like the modern manner. There were three classes. The 8-Meters and 6-Meters raced at Le Havre whilst the Monotypes, which drew seventeen entries, raced on the Seine at Meulan. Besides the winner, Norway and the usual European nations, Spain, Argentina, Cuba, South Africa and Canada sent entries to the new Monotype event. A special fleet of boats, truly strange to modern eyes. was built for the single-handed class. They were 5-Meter gaff-sloops. Spinnakers were also supplied but it is doubtful if they were actually used. Boats were drawn for eight days in advance and heats were ran. In the finals L. Huybrechts of Belgium scored two wins and took the Gold with H. Robert of Norway 2nd and H. Dittmar of Finland 3rd. The Monotypes started from a fixed transit line on the C.V.P. club house and merely sailed up and down the river. Another interesting tit-bit of information gleaned from the records was that Mile. Ella Maillart, aged twenty-one of Switzerland, sailed in the Monotype Class but just failed to reach the finals. She earned a special mention.

In 1928 in Amsterdam the classes were 5- Meters, 6-Meters and the International 12 ft. dinghy. The Dutch furnished the 12 ft dinghies for the Monotype and 10 boats started. Manfred Curry, who later gained fame for his books on yachting and aerodynamics, participated in the Monotype and ended up in the middle of the fleet. The races were sailed in heats and a peculiar points system was used which combined and averaged the results. The dinghies raced at Durgerdam in the south-west corner of the Zuider Zee, whilst the keelboats had a course between Muiden and Marken, just offshore.

The 10th modern Olympics was hosted by Los Angeles, California in 1932. As one- design yachting was catching on throughout the world, the United States convinced the IYRU that the one-design Star would make an excellent Olympic event. So there were four events in 1932: a one man boat; a two man boat - the Star; a five man formula boat; and the 6-Meter. The United States nominated the Snowbird for the Monotype. The races were held in Los Angeles Harbour. The number of entries was held down by the tremendous cost to ship boats from Europe.

This was the first time that the Olympics had been held outside of Europe since 1904, when there were no yachting events. The Snowbirds were heavy hard chine boats about 13 ft. long with nearly flat bottoms and with a single sail set on a mast only stayed with a forestay. They were to have been raced in the mornings but there was never any wind then, so they raced after mid-day often in very fresh conditions. It was noted that there were no capsizes and it also appears that running starts were frequently given.

We now move on to the famous Games of Berlin in 1936. The sailing was held on the beautiful Kiel fjord in 8-Meters, 6-Meters, Stars, and a new Olympic Monotype, usually called the O-Jolle, which was designed by that famous and delightful helmsman Helmut Stauch. Helmut represented South Africa in the Finn in 1952. There were twenty-five entries in the Monotype Class and the Dutchman D. Kagchelland won from the German W. Krogmann, with Peter Scott of Britain 3rd. Except for the first race it was mainly light weather.

Post World War II World War II prevented any Olympic competition until 1948 when the XIV Olympics were scheduled for England, with the sailing taking place in Torbay. The IYRU decided that the 8-Meters were too expensive and dropped them in favour of a three man keel boat that was popular in Europe, the Dragon. They kept the 6-Meter boat and the two man Star boat and added the Swallow. For the Monotype, the British furnished a newly-designed British boat called the Firefly. This dinghy is normally sailed by two persons and the skippers in the Monotype class had their hands full trying to handle the mainsheet, the jib, the tiller, the centreboard, and bail at the same time. Trying to sail it was a real challenge to the 21 representatives. Ralph Evans Jr., the U.S. entry, was leading the series until the last race when a young upstart named Paul Elvstrom from Denmark nosed him out and won the Gold Medal. Rickard Sarby from Sweden did not do so well in the Firefly but gained much valuable experience by capsizing during the racing. Elvstrom had a remarkable sheeting system on his Firefly. He had a bar across his tiller with a swivel cleat for the mainsheet. His technique on tacking was to free the main a few inches and re-cleat it. Then free the jib and tack. Finally the jib would be cleated and then the main tightened. A very dangerous operation unless done with split second timing.