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If we talk about the sport of sailing, we usually refer to the navigation of a certain course with the means of a sailing vehicle, even if the propulsion by a sail is part of many different sport activities, such as gliders, deltaplanes, snow-kites etc. The sport of sailing differs from other sport activities as it needs a water vehicle (which can have extremely small dimensions such as a surf board, or extremely large like during the maxi yachts regattas with one or more hulls). The propulsion of such water vehicles must derive from only one or more sails and the boat crew, composed by one or more persons, has to manoeuvre the vehicle manually.

SAILING REGULATIONS
The sport of sailing takes place especially during sailing regattas, which are races with sailing vessels, where usually the boat wins, which navigates the regatta course in the shortest period of time. During sailing races, only the sailing performances of the boat and the propulsion forces of the wind can be used for navigation. This means that any other kind of driving force is prohibited, including some certain body movements which might increase the vessel’s speed. The starting procedure includes a countdown, with preceding signals like acoustic sirens or foghorns together with visual signals such as flags, which communicate to the regatta participants how much time remains before the start. The competitors then have to cross the starting line set by the organizers. In case a participant crosses this line beforehand, he has to return to his starting point behind this line, while circumnavigating on the outer side of the buoys to make a new start – otherwise he risks disqualification. Sometimes it happens that the whole starting procedure has to be repeated when many boats start in advance and the judges are not able to identify all of them. During the regatta, the regulations define in detail who has the right of way and how the participants have to behave to give way. In case a participant feels to be disadvantaged, due to an opponent who did not respect the regulations, the participant can make an objection to the regatta judges after the regatta has come to an end. After hearing all parties involved and after having assessed all information, the judge may decide to disqualify or penalize the participant who violated the regulations. It is impossible to sum up the overwhelming variety of sailing competitions that take place in predefined boat categories in the waters all over the world. However, we can talk about two main types of regattas: coastal regattas and offshore regattas.

COASTAL REGATTAS
This category comprises all regattas which usually take place for a few hours, along the predefined “regatta course” which has been defined by the Regatta Committee, with the use of signalling buoys around which the competing boats have to circle in order to complete the course. In spite of the name ‘coastal regatta’, they can take place in both sea waters and wide sweet water rivers or lakes. The courses stipulated by the Regatta Regulations are individually defined by the Regatta Committee, so that at least one leg is windward. In this way, the seamanship capacities of the competing teams are tested. In case the wind direction changes during the competition, the Regatta Committee may rule that this wind direction was foreseeable and was in favour of the participants who could foresee it and respond to it with an appropriate tactic. In this case it may be decided to leave the buoys in their present position, or to orientate the regatta course according to the new changes, while notifying all participants. The last approach is usually the applied option. On the other hand, the Regatta Committee may decide that the wind direction was not foreseeable and thus just incidentally favoured a few participants. In this case the Regatta Committee may confirm the correct contest and who reaches the last buoy first is the winning competitor (if usually at least three legs of the predefined regatta course has been completed), or it may decide to invalidate the whole contest. One of the most popular courses is the so-called “Olympic Quadrangle” and has its origin in the classical sailing competitions held during the Olympic Games. The traditional “Olympic Triangle” consists of a lap, starting with a beat or work to windward from the starting line to the top, weather or windward mark, a first reaching leg to the wing mark (also know as the gybe mark), a second reaching leg from the wing mark to the bottom or leeward mark, a hot dog (a beat to the top mark with a square run back to the bottom mark), another lap and then a beat to the finish line. The legs of the coastal regattas are often listed in alphanumeric order, with a conventional system: the starting buoy has the letter P, the finish buoy the letter A, the first buoy (typically the leeward buoy) has the number 1 and the following buoys have consecutive numbers. Thus, the Olympic Triangle is defined as following: P-1-2-3-1-3-4-A, in total six legs. In the course of the years, different types of routes have been developed, according to the various needs or characteristics of the sailing boats participating in the diversified races. So there are very easy courses such as straight lines with just two buoys (with upwind or downwind buoys) up to extremely complex courses like during the America’s Cup of 1992 in which the boats have to complete a mixture of an S-leg together with a straight line.

MATCH RACE
A subclass represents the ‘match race’. In this regatta, only two opponents compete like in a true racing duel. It may sound paradox to talk about a ‘subclass’ in this regatta typology, as the America’s Cub is the oldest, international sailing competitions ever. However, it should be emphasised that the modern match race has little in common with the America’s Cup and shows clear differences. The most considerable difference lays in the fact that the match race stipulates the use of two absolutely identical vessels (usually known as ‘one-design’), which furthermore are exchanged between the two opponents during some of the legs (usually done in the course of different sections, or ‘round robins’). Such boats are given at the disposal by the Organizational Committee that all participants can equally try for a defined period of time. The participation in a match race normally takes place on invitation, based on the classification in the so-called ‘ranking list’ by the FIV or ISAF according to the results of preceding races, multiplied by a difficulty index which depends on the importance of the competition and the training level of the other participants.

OFFSHORE REGATTAS
This category comprises almost all regattas in which the regatta course is defined on the basis of its geographical features. Here, the regatta area can be extremely extensive and it may comprise the whole globe, like in the case of the circumnavigation of the earth. Therefore, to complete the regatta course, it is necessary to circumnavigate islands, caps, rocks or even continents in an anti-clockwise or clockwise direction. Obviously, such regattas can take from a few hours up to several months, even years. Offshore regattas can be of a diverse nature, dependent on many aspects. We distinguish between regattas with or without stopovers, sometimes divided into sub-sections and sometimes the whole course needs to be completed without interruption for supplies. Last but not least, we can differentiate between single, double or team regattas, on the basis of the number of crew members on board which can differ between one or two persons up to a team without limitation in numbers.

SAILING TECHNIQUES
The sport of sailing is based on the interaction of two key elements: the technique as well as tactics. The tactics define the capacity to interpret and at the same time evaluate factors such as environmental conditions (wind, currents, weather and opponents etc.) as well as one’s own position inside the regatta course in comparison to the opponents. Furthermore, it is important to apply the diverse regulations to the present conditions, as well as to evaluate the interaction of all these factors in order to find the best possible approach and thus obtaining the best results during the competition. The technique, on the other hand, refers to the competition tools, the boat with its main components such as the hull (one or more hulls), mast (or masts) and sails. The technical aspects play a high importance during sailing races, so it is normal to try to reduce their influence, in order to put the participants’ seamanship skills to the test. There are two methods to reach this target: 1) the definition of sailing classes and 2) application of handicaps. The sailing sports can already be practised from the age of 6-7 years, thanks to the small boats called ‘optimist’ (overall length 2,30 m, sail area 3,25 m2) which were designed for the little ones. The children can show their capabilities in sailing races, even of high standard up to world championships, after having learned the basic skills of sailing navigation.