1964 Tokyo

Hosting the first Games in Asia was Tokyo. The expenditure on facilities and transport was massive. Participating nations reached an all time high, 93, though South Africa was not invited by the IOC. But 42 nations did contest the sailing competition, eight fewer than in Naples, held at Enoshima, a multi-million dollar marina, on Sagami Bay. Though two medals for Canada back in 1932 was the first time a nation outside of northern Europe had claimed Olympic success, the Americans put in a really strong performance in Japan; no gold, but a medal in every class.

There was distinct whiff of ‘trade’ amongst the competitors, following Elvstrom who had turned his sport into his business. The Olympics remember, were still amateur under the IOC code. The founder and future president of North Sails, Lowell North and Peter Barrett took bronze in the Dragon and silver in the Finn respectively. This was Barrett’s second Games with US Olympic Committee having described him in the official book as a ‘non yacht owner’ when he placed 11th in the Finn class in 1960.

Another sailmaker and another Dane to move countries, Helmer Pedersen won the Flying Dutchman class for New Zealand, particularly impressive in heavier winds and igniting the spark that saw this tiny country’s rise into a sailing superpower. Behind ‘HP’ were Briton Keith Musto, the European Champion, and Harry ‘Buddy’ Melges, their names to become two brands as well known to sailors around the world as North’s.

Durwood Knowles won his second Star medal for Bahamas, securing the gold despite retiring from one race with a broken mainsail halyard and bettering his 1956 bronze. But the tightest competition was in the 5.5s. In the concluding seventh race no one was sure of the title but AUS, USA, SWE and ITA all could have done. It boiled down to American J J McNamara and Swede Lars Thorn had a tack for tack duel up the final beat with McNamara making a desperately close attempt to cross Thorn on the final cross. The American foul prompted McNamara to retire. He took the bronze, Thorn the silver and Australian Bill Northam, clear of the fight, the gold.

1968

For most of the 5,500 competitors the Games were about dealing with the altitude at Mexico City. No such worries for the sailors, but down on the coast at Acapulco, there was enervating humidity to deal with, plus counter swell and waves, created by offshore storms, crashing and rebounding into the coast. For added difficulty, the waves were not necessarily aligned with the wind.

Acapulco had sprung from nothing into a resort, ‘discovered’ by Swiss businessman and traveller Ted Stauffer. Despite dire predictions, the winds were not as limp as expected and each of the five gold was settled by Race 6. The exception was the Flying Dutchman and that was because Briton Rodney Pattisson hit another boat on a start line so skewed it could not be crossed on starboard tack. Pattisson was DSQ in the port end melee. After that he won five races with a 2nd in the seventh race and with the DSQ his discard; just reward for three years dedicated training.

Elvstrom was back after a break. His self-imposed pressure to excel and expectations for a fifth gold after 1960 led to a self-admitted attack of the nerves. But in the fray, and switching to the Star, he won only one race and finished 4th. Lowell North won the gold convincingly despite fever in the early races, from Peter Lunde Jr.

West Germany’s 1964 Finn victor, Willi Kuhweide, had a very poor regatta. The other front runner, Brazil’s three times gold Cup winner and bendy rig pioneer Jorg Bruder, didn’t make the podium either. Instead the 30-year old Valentin Mankin, who’d been in the class for 15 years, won his first gold. Mankin was to become one of the most feted Olympic sailors behind Elvstrom, with three gold and a silver in three classes.

Winning silver behind Mankin was Austrian Hubert Raudaschl, whose first Games was in 1960 and his ninth and last in 1992, by which time he’d won another silver (1980, Star).

A nice touch was Switzerland’s Louis Noverraz, winning a silver in the 5.5s at the ripe age of 66. He had just missed victory in 1936 at Kiel when he was eliminated under the amateur rule. The IYRU rule rescinded the verdict in 1965 and Noverraz ‘won’ retrospective silver.

1972 Munich

If Japan had set a standard for facilities then the German exceeded it. The main Games were in Munich this time but Kiel hosted the yachting as it had done in 1936. “The world’s most complete regatta site,” was how American Dick Rose described it. The USA won three medals. Germany needed impressive facilities as it had to cater for 152 boats from 42 nations. The Schilksee facility remains in use today, the high-rise athletes’ village now private apartments. In fact, Schilksee had all the paraphernalia of a contemporary venue, including perimeter fencing.

The number of classes grew from five to six for the first time since 1948. And for the one first time, they were all one-design classes. Out went the 5.5-metre and in came the two- person planning keelboat, the Tempest, and the three-man keelboat, the Soling. Its first ever gold medallist was Buddy Melges, adding to his 1964 bronze in the FD, and sailing with Bill Bentsen and William Allen. Having won the American trials in a breezy San Francisco Bay, he made short work of the sub-10 knots conditions in Kiel.

Rodney Pattisson proved he was Flying Dutchman king, with a second successive gold. On the podium with him was West German Uli Libor who added a bronze to his 1968 silver. In between them were France’s Pajot brothers, Yves and Mark, the latter to go to huge solo multihulls success in the 1980s plus three America’s Cup campaigns.

East German Paul Borowski mirrored Libor’s tally, adding silver to his 1968 bronze in the Dragons, a class won by Australia’s John Cuneo, a four time 12-Square Metre Sharpie champion who had moved on through the 505 and 5.5-Metre classes. Australia was not a hotbed for the Dragon class, neither was it for the Star, yet fellow Aussie David Forbes won that too from Sweden’s Pelle Petterson, later to design, skipper and steer his country’s first America’s Cup boat in 1980 and create the Maxi range of production boats.

Elvstrom, eager for a fifth gold left the Soling competition half way through the regatta. Mankin won gold number two, having moved from the Finn to the Tempest, his boat the only one in the USSR.

1976

The terrorist murder of nine of Israeli athletes at Munich meant that the Montreal Games were held under the tightest security. Sailing took place in another Canadian province, Ontario instead of Quebec, at Kingston. In a bid to modernise Olympic sailing, two venerable keelboats were dropped, the Star and Dragon. In their places a modern, glassfibre, trapezing dinghy in the shape of the 470 designed by Frenchman Andre Cornu, and a multihull with the Tornado class. This was created by Briton Rodney March, assisted by Reg White and Terry Pearce, and won the IYRU trials for an Olympic catamaran. Like Rikard Sarby had done with the Finn, White, already a winner of the Little America’s Cup, blended his intimate knowledge of the class with his ability to win the first gold medal with a race in hand, crewed by his brother-in-law John Osborn.

The first 470 winner was West German Frank Hubner. Plenty of interest was focussed on Rodney Pattisson and Valentin Mankin, gunning for a third gold on the trot in the FD and Tempest classes. It was not be. They won silver. Pattisson was bettered by West German Diesch brothers, Jorg and Ekhart, and Mankin by Swede John Albrechtson. In fact, Pattisson held on the silver by just 0.4pt.

East Germany was among the medals with Jochen Schumann winning the Finn class gold, on his way into the Pantheon of medallists, eventually matching Mankin’s three gold and a silver, after moving to the Soling class. Schumann had never won a major Finn event before the Games but a sports-science student, he used an early VMG (speed made good to windward) indicator to develop his sails, settings, tune and steering. A rudimentary recording device and basic computer had allowed post-test analysis.

Though they didn’t know it at the time the paths of Australian John Bertrand, bronze in the Finn, and Dennis Conner, bronze in the Tempest, were later to become inexorably linked in the historic 1983 America’s Cup; their form in Olympic classes, a passport to helming a 12-metre.

The burning impression of 1976 was made by Britain’s Tempest crew Alan Warren and David Hunt. With an undertaker’s sense of humour – for this was Warren’s profession - the pair concealed a container of acetone in a buoyancy tank in the last race. At day’s end, having declared Gift ‘orse (their Tempest that had been damaged in transit) no longer competitive, the pair lit a flare, stepped off and let the Tempest burn.

“She went lame and we had to put her down,” said a deadpan Warren.

1980 Moscow

Russia had been part of the Olympics since 1900, and though the status of Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia had caused political problems in the past, it was nothing like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The USA failed to have a boycott of the Moscow Games imposed but a high number of countries, probably 40-50, or individual sports federations, decided not to send teams. The official tally shows 80 nations competing where they had been 92 and 121 in Montreal and Munich.

In sporting terms the notable absentees were the USA, Japan and West Germany and along with these three, Australia, Britain, Canada and France were missing from the sailing competition. Competitors were reduced too with only 83 boats contesting the six classes, the smallest total since 1956.

The Tempest was dropped after just two Games to make way for the Star’s return with Valentin Mankin and Hubert Raudaschl winning the gold and silver. Given the circumstances, the USSR might have been expected to win more, but Boris Budinov took silver in the Soling (behind a second successive gold for Dane Poul Richard Hoj-Jensen) and Andrei Balashov. A silver in the FD for David Wilkins gave Ireland its first and only sailing medal.

1984 Los Angeles

The Los Angeles/Long Beach combination seen in 1932 was repeated. So too was a boycott, with countries from the Soviet sphere of influence refusing to come to the USA. Nevertheless it was the biggest Olympic sailing event seen at the time with 62 nations competing.

For the first time since Melbourne, sailing was contiguous to the main Games. A nice touch was the presence of Owen Churchill, then 88, and who’d been one of the USA’s first two sailing gold medallists from the 1932 Games. He attended in his restored, medal-winning 8-metre Angelita.

Sailing gained a new seventh event, windsurfer, using the Winglider class. Straightaway it was the largest fleet with 38 competitors, 10 more than the next largest, the Finns and 470s. The USA was dominant, winning medals in every class, something not seen since 1912. The first three Olympic regattas had been host country bonanzas.

This was the Games where many contemporary top sailors made their mark. Kiwi Russell Coutts fought off terrible salt-aggravated boils to win the Finn gold from American John Bertrand. Jonathan McKee took the FD title for the USA with Carl Buchan his crew, whilst Buchan Snr, Bill, won the Stars with Stevie Erickson as crew. Robbie Haines, crewed by Rod Davis and Ed Trevelyn took the Soling title. Behind Haines was Brazil’s Torben Grael and it’s fascinating to compare his record with the likes of Elvstrom, Schumann and Mankin. By 2004, Grael had won a medal in five of his six Games, missing out in 1992 with an 11th. From 1988 onwards, he moved from the silver medal winning Soling to the Star and won a further two bronze and two gold, a quite exceptional performance.

This was Paul Elvstrom’s last Games, coming out retirement at the age of 56, to sail a Tornado with his youngest daughter Trine. They finished 4th, agonisingly, just one place better in any race would have secured the bronze so many wanted the Elvstroms to win.

Spain’s Jose-Luis Doreste won the 470 gold yet many remember 1984 as the year when Briton Cathy Foster, crewed by Pete Newlands, won a race against an all-male fleet in an Open Olympic class, finishing 7th overall in a 28 boat competition.

1988 Seoul

The IYRU decided to address the paltry numbers of women in Olympic sailing by adding an eighth event, a 470 division for females. Americans Allison Jolly and Lisa Jewel were the first winners in the 21-boat fleet.

All this took place in Pusan, South Korea’s second city after the capital Seoul, where the main Games were, and the country’s major port. Until the country was awarded the Games in 1981, recreational sailing really hadn’t taken root in South Korea and the Korea Yachting Association existed in name only.

Pusan posed interesting questions about tide in an area for which there was little data and teams had not started the large scale met. programmes that are now considered essential. This is one reason why Britons Mike McIntyre and Bryn Vaile surprised many by taking the gold in Star class, splitting from the fleet and looking for turning tide to win the last race. It was their second win of the series. Playing into British hands was the fact that American Mark Reynolds and Canadian Ross McDonald both failed to finish the rugged final race.

Spain’s Jose Luis Doreste made a seamless transition from the 470 in which he’d won gold in 1984 to earn a second gold in the Finn ahead of US Virgin Island Peter Holmberg and Kiwi John Cutler.

Two of the all-time greats in the Soling class, Jochen Schumann (from what was still East Germany) and Dane Jesper Bank sandwiched American silver medallist John Kostecki. The Schumann v Bank contest was to run all the through to the final leg of the final race of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney after which the Soling was dropped. By then, Bank had added the 1996 and 2000 gold to his bronze and Schumann a further gold and silver.

Brazil celebrated for not only did Torben Grael gain the bronze in the Star, but brother Lars got the same medal in the Tornado class.

France had won one medal since 1932 – Serge Maury’s Finn gold in 1972- until Thierry Peponnet burst onto the scene and having won the bronze in the 470 class in Los Angeles, together with crew Luc Pilot, Peponnet got the gold in Pusan.