Sports

A range of competitive sailing formats are involved in the sailing sport, which are sanctioned by different sailing federations and yacht clubs. Racing disciplines include matches within a fleet of sailing craft, between a pair thereof or among teams. Sailing matches are usually sailed with one to two sheets of sails fixed, and can be sailed with a J or a spinnaker. Sailing races are sailed on courses that are set at intervals for the purpose of measuring a vessel’s elapsed time.

The origins of the sport of sailing date back to the invention of wind-powered, handcrafted sailing vessels such as galleys by ancient Greeks, Romans and Arabs. Sail can be traced to at least the 6th century BC with ancient Egyptian art. The first warship specifically designed and used for sea combat was the trireme. Sail, along with sail rigging, was an important factor in the warfare and exploration of ancient Greece, China and Mesoamerica, and it was used during the Age of Exploration as a decisive factor in crossing vast oceans and reaching other continents. Sail was also developed by those attempting to make the first intercontinental trips. For example, the Chinese invented the peng, a multi-hulled vessel for sailing large bodies of water. The Chinese sailed the voyages of the Genoese navigator Zheng He to the Far East.

The sail does not come to mean “invented” by a single person or even a group, but rather “reinvented” by many. The sail is a marvelous invention, an extension of the arm, developed by the French in the 16th century as their war machine was in competition with the English. In an earlier time, early sailors had observed and experimented with the benefits of creating wind by adding sail to an otherwise hard-angled ship, using the sails to steer, as did the ancient Romans.

The sport of sailing is racing other boats around a track or course which is marked with floating buoys or other fixed marks. Boats can be from small dinghies to large yachts. Usually, the small boats will just race each other and be of the same type. This is called one-design racing. The races are set up and the smallest boat will win based on their speed and agility over a defined distance. The bigger boats go the course with different sailing characteristics.

Sea net racing is one of the fastest growing boat racing events. The main events are the One Meter Dinghy, Sydney Cup and the Western Australian One-Meter Dinghy and Sports Boat Championships. These events are raced around racing tracks in a controlled environment, as much as possible. The International One Meter Dinghy and Sports Boat Association is currently at the development stage of the new Emirates One Meter Dinghy class to make this boat more suitable for racing in a controlled environment.

Smaller boats (up to one meter) can also be raced in dinghy (pontoop) flat-bottomed boats in close proximity. In schools and junior clubs around Australia, these boats are very popular.

In Australia, there are three major sailing classes. These are the Optimist, Sunfish and Bantam classes. The two most common sailing boat types in Australia are the Optimist and Sunfish.

Unless you choose to race at the highest level, sailing is not an expensive sport! Secondhand boats can be bought very cheaply, but you do not have to have your own boat at all. Many boats need 2 or more people to sail them, so finding opportunities to sail on someone else’s boat is not difficult. You can also start sailing for free with dinghy sailing lessons. In fact, it is becoming an increasing popular sport in Germany, with more and more schools offering it to children.

If you are considering buying a motor boat, but are concerned about the cost, consider buying used. Most clubs will let you use a boat for free if you promise to give them an equal amount of time with it. You will need to pay for fuel and maintenance, but you can then use it for free if you want to, to learn and have fun, for example if you want to learn to drive. Make sure you check with your yacht club about this before you buy a boat, however, as sometimes sailing clubs charge for use of the water, and you could end up paying twice!

In fact, it can be deadly. A study from the Rhode Island Hospital concluded that sailing is more dangerous and has a higher fatality rate than skiing and snowboarding combined with NFL football. In fact, the US Coast Guard has reported that there were 841 injuries and 271 fatalities among sailors between 2000-2011.

Well, it isn’t likely that the Navy or the military would be so bold as to recommend an activity as dangerous as sailing as a career option. It would make sense that the military is keeping the risk involved at a low enough level to make sense from a business point of view and don’t want potential recruits who might have a tendency towards fatal accidents. But the real reason that we are looking at an epidemic of deaths among America’s sailors is that a good number of those deaths involve a simple boat mistake and a lack of common sense when it comes to emergency procedures.

Four sailors died when their boat, a fast keelboat named Pax, flipped over in high seas while they were racing in the Cook’s Cup. The boat rolled over on its port side, with the sailors on the starboard side still in the boat. But the accident happened because the boat’s keel weighed so much that it kept the boat from flipping back over on its port side.