The History of Uniforms in Olympic Sailing: From Paris 1900 to Paris 2024

Good Monday Morning, Uni Watchers. I hope everyone had a better weekend than I. Something either bit or stung me on the top side of my right hand, and yesterday and today it’s swelled up, itches, and at times is quite painful. Fortunately, it hasn’t hindered my ability to type, although I find myself pausing every minute or so to scratch an itch.

But I digress.

This morning, I’m pleased to bring you another report from an Olympic Correspondent — Connor Lothrop. He’s going to take you through a sport that receives little to no coverage on Uni Watch (so much so that I had to create a new category, “Sailing,” just for this article!). It’s a great read, and I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read, and let Connor know your thoughts in the comments.

OK? OK!

Here’s Connor…

• • • • •The History of Uniforms in Olympic Sailing: From Paris 1900 to Paris 2024
by Connor Lothrop

For my money, sailing is one of the most underrated watches of the summer Olympics. For experienced racers, there’s wonder to be found in the nuances of every roll tack and start line fight. For those less familiar with the sport, there’s the brutal capsizes, idyllic locations, and, as of recently, some intriguing uniform pieces to enjoy.

However, those uniforms in the traditional sense are a new development. Up until very recently, gear was supplied by each individual sailor with no scrutiny by any governing body. Standardized sailing kits with color, design nods, and other Uni Watch favorites are very new to the world of international sailing. In this column, I’ve done my best to trace the general evolution of sailing attire at the highest level from one extreme to the other, using photos from the games to illustrate my points.

First Olympics

Although sailing was organized for the first Olympiad in 1896, heavy Mediterranean winds saw the cancellation of the event. Thus, the first Olympic sailing (then referred to as yachting) event took place in Paris in 1900, with events split between the Seine River and nearby Le Havre.

Very few pictures of detailed accounts of this event were readily available, but the one good picture I came across from those games showed Helene de Pourtales – the first female medalist in Olympic history – and her crewmates sailing on Le Havre. In this picture, the participants appear to be wearing contemporary upper-class recreation clothes – white, potentially linen long-sleeved shirts and slacks. There is an apparent lack of specialized sailing gear. No one is wearing a PFD (portable flotation device), sun protection, or water-resistant clothing. In all pictures I came across of the early games, this was a standard outfit.

Pre-WW2

The art of building a racing boat was advancing like wildfire during the pre-war period, but the competitors’ clothing was barely changing. Pictures from this era do reveal a small shift, though – as boats got smaller and the chances of getting wet from spray or a capsize increased, the practicality of the clothing seemed to change. Gone were the clothes you might expect for a game of lawn tennis, replaced with what look to be sensible wool sweaters and trousers.

Sailors continued to dress independent of competitors and teammates alike. In photos from this era, no two men – and they are all men – are dressed the same.

Post-War Boom

After the Second World War, both the boats and the uniforms began to evolve more quickly. Boat classes became more standardized and would often serve in multiple Olympics, starting with the Finn in 1952. Sailors, who had previously built their own boats, became subject to stricter one-design rules, and later, would only get boats and equipment provided by the IOC.

Sailing clothing also slowly began to standardize. During the 1950s and ’60s, the sailors continued to compete in heavy fisherman’s sweaters and trousers, but also adding hats and sunglasses more regularly.

The 1972 Munich Olympics saw many sailors begin to wear PFDs. In addition, waterproof materials became more accessible to the public and modern foul weather gear such as raincoats and spray pants began to appear in photos. Sailors also began to explore brighter colors in their gear, sometimes even matching their boats, as is shown below.

Both would medal in the Finn in 1972.

As the 1980s approached, equipment continued to get better, but was still not standardized on boats with multiple crew members. For instance, the 1984 Soling crew pictured below are all wearing different jackets, shirts, hats, and PFDs. There is no demarcation of their country visible anywhere on their uniform. Meanwhile, the windsurfers cruised around Long Beach in what appear to be the first Olympic use of jersey ‘pinnies’ emblazoned with their initials. Again, the three letter abbreviations for the country that we’re so used to today are conspicuously missing.

The Modern Era

1996 is the Olympiad in which sailing kits began to take their modern form. All sailors began to wear pinnies with their three-letter country acronym on the front and back. PFD’s were present on most but not all sailors, and many sailors opted for one-piece wetsuits. Others took a more relaxed approach and stuck with a moisture-wicking shirt and a pair of hiking shorts.

This trend continued at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, with the first sighting of the fabled gold pinnie. In addition to all competitors wearing a white stretchy jersey over their life jackets, the leader(s) going into the final race were instructed to wear a bright yellow pinnie. This not only identified them as the team to beat for other sailors, but also allowed television crews to easily spot the leaders. This has continued at every Olympics since and now is common practice at most high-level events.

2004 and 2008 saw the continuation of the stretchy pinnie trend, but with different overarching designs linked to the overall aesthetic of the host country. The Athens games in 2004 used a stained glass-like design on the underarm panels to evoke ancient Greek mosaics while the Beijing pinnies were plain white with prominent Olympic rings. Competitors continued to wear the newest wetsuits to stay as dry as possible for the long days on the water. The London Olympics saw little evolution, with standard white pinnies over tech gear.

However, while materials and general outfits stayed the same, the 2016 and 2020 Olympics started a trend of sailors in double-handed boats dressing more uniformly. While the materials of the clothing the sailors wear haven’t changed much in the last 30-40 years, teams are now trying to put up a more unified front, either out of personal choice, branding deals, or decrees at a federation level. This is demonstrated here by the Brazilian 49er sailors and American 470 crew. Expect this trend to continue at this years Olympics.

Conclusion

What can we take away from this 120-year evolution of sailing uniforms? For starters, up until recently the gear was not…well, uniform. While the guidelines on what you can wear for the 2024 Olympics are quite strict, the concept of guidelines at all are relatively new. Synchronization of outfits within teams or even boats is a concept that has only evolved in the last decade and only at the Olympics. Even at the highest levels of organized sailing in the US (usually college sailing), standardization of uniforms is uncommon past the required lifejacket pinnie.

Second, the main driver of uniform evolution has been the arc of waterproof clothing. Over Olympic sailing history, the clothing of choice has moved from recreation clothes to fisherman’s sweaters to steadily improving waterproof and moisture wicking clothing.

Finally, we’ve seen aspects of safety equipment be added to the uniforms. PFD’s, not even seen in the Olympics until the 1960s, have become required in almost all Olympic classes now, changing the look and style of the sailors. Sailing as a sport has developed enormously since Paris, 1900. So too, for better or worse, has its aesthetic. As safety equipment and uniform trends change, so too will the kit these sailors wear come 2028.

• • • • •Thanks Connor! Nice rundown!

Readers? What say you?