Date | 29 August – 7 September 1960 | |
---|---|---|
Status | Olympic | |
Location | Golfo di Napoli (Campo Giallo) | |
Participants | 81 from 27 countries | |
Format | Points awarded for placement in each race. Best six of seven scores to count for final placement. |
The Dragon boats raced on the Rosso course, as did the 5.5 metres. Greece Crown Prince Konstantinos finished only 10th in the first race, but then finished no worse than fourth in any of the last six races to win the gold medal by over 1,000 points over the Argentine crew aboard Tango. The Crown Prince received the traditional dunking in honor of his victory, as he was pushed into the water by his mother, Queen Frederika.
The 24th-place yacht, Patricia of the Philippines, never challenged for any honors but one of its crew members later achieved notoriety. Francisco Gonzales settled in the United States in San Francisco and had financial difficulties, and his wife threatened to leave him. Gonzales took out a large insurance policy with his beneficiary and told friends he would die on either 6 or 7 May 1964. He then boarded Pacific Airlines 773 in Reno, Nevada, which was headed for San Francisco. It never made it. Gonzales broke into the cockpit, shot both pilots and then shot and killed himself. The pilot-less aircraft crashed and killed all 44 people on board.