Sailing at the 1992 Summer Olympics

The Olympic yachting program again increased in size, this time to 10 events after 8 at Seoul in 1988 and 7 at Los Angeles in 1984. In addition, the trend was to have more gender-segregated events, as there were three events each for men and women, with four mixed events. The 1992 yachting events were held at the Puerto Olímpico, or Port Olímpic, just off the coast of Barcelona. The venue was constructed specifically for the 1992 Olympics and was opened in 1991.

There were some changes in formats in 1992. Since 1936 it had been fairly standard to contest seven races, but in 1992 the format for Soling was changed. The Soling sailors first contested a series of fleet races, which qualified six boats for a round-robin of head-to-head match racing, followed by semi-finals and finals, the first time this format had been used at the Olympics. The men’s and women’s windsurfing events had nine races, while the other seven classes had the standard format of seven fleet races.

The scoring system was the Olympic standard that had been introduced in 1968, and which was used for the last time at the 1992 Olympics, and which was a modified point-for-place scoring system. To break ties, the total of all race scores were used. If a boat did not finish, was disqualified, or did not start a race, it was awarded points equal to the number of boats entered in the event, or the highest score possible.

Of the 10 contested events, Spain won four while France won two, with the other four split up among Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States. The US won the most medals, with nine, the most ever by one nation in Olympic yachting at one games (save for the unusual programs of 1900 and 1920), followed by Spain, with five, and New Zealand, with four.