Olympic Sailing 2008 - The Star Class Sailboats

Boating and Sailing News 24 Jul

The 2008 Olympic games are right around the corner, and gold medals are awaiting the sailors who win each of the 11 sailing events (two of which are on sailboards). To better acquaint you with the sailing class designs and competitors, we're going to take a look at each one-design as we lead up to the opening ceremonies. Today, we'll start with the heavyweight of the group: The Star keelboat.

Nicknamed "the torture rack," the Star is the oldest sailing class to be in the China Olympics, having first seen Olympic sailing in 1932. Designed back in 1911 by Francis Sweisguth, the Star Class lays claim to being the first one-design, and is a popular 2-person race boat with around 2,000 racing worldwide. At nearly 1,500 lbs., with a long boom, slim beam, and plenty of sail, this is the heavyweights' boat, and the only keelboat for the Men's sailing events (the smaller Yngling is the Women's Keelboat).

With fluky conditions predicted for the venue, it's not likely to be a shut-out for anybody on these boats. Watch for Mateusz Kusznierewicz and Dominik Zycki from Poland, as well as the Swiss, Swedish and Italian teams, but don't discount anyone. There's going to be some great competition in this class, and a few dark horses may well find their way to the podium.

The 2008 Star Class Olympians (alphabetic by country)

Australia - Iain MURRAY and Andrew PALFREY
Austria - Hans SPITZAUER and Hans-Christian NEHAMMER
Brazil - Robert SCHEIDT and Bruno PRADA
Croatia - Marin Jr LOVOROVIC and Sinisa MIKULICIC
France - Xavier ROHART and Pascal RAMBEAU
Germany - Marc-Aurel PICKEL and Ingo BORKOWSKI
Great Britain - Iain PERCY and Andrew SIMPSON
Ireland - Peter O'LEARY and Stephen MILNE
Italy - Diego NEGRI and Luigi VIALE
New Zealand - Hamish PEPPER and Carl WILLIAMS
Poland - Mateusz KUSZNIEREWICZ and Dominik ZYCKI
Portugal - Afonso DOMINGOS and Bernardo SANTOS
PR China - Li HONGQUAN and Wang HE
Sweden - Frederik LOOF and Anders EKSTROM
Switzerland - Flavio MARAZZI and Enrico DEMARIA
USA - John DANE III and Austin SPERRY

-YC for YachtPals.com

READ MORE ABOUT THE STAR CLASS SAILBOAT, OR SAILING AT THE Olympics:

Star Class Sailboat

Submitted By YachtPals on 24 Jul

Olympics, Qingdao, China, Star, Beijing, star, star class, sailboats, keelboats, sailing, sail, boat, boats, boating, Olympic Games, 2008

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Star Class Boats Sailing at the Olympics

On August 15th, 2008 YachtPals says:

Read the news, updates, and results of the Star class sailing races at the 2008 Olympics in Qingdao here:

Sailing at the Olympics - Star Class Race Results

Star Sailing

On August 19th, 2008 stevedickerson says:

Congratulations to John Dane and Austin Sperry. Thanks for the phone calls Austin. Everybody here is pulling for you and we are all very, very, very proud of and for you. Good luck Wed.

By-the-way, we know you want a Gold and we want it for you, but we're just proud you are there representing us with such grace, class and dignity.

the RYA & Olympic committee obvioulsy have a preference for sail

On August 20th, 2008 Sailor (anonymous) says:

What a joke - why will this class be competitng in 2012, the RYA & Olympic committee obvioulsy have a preference for sailing slow boring monohulls aka bath tubs

The catamaran racing is much more spectacular, the excitement and high speed thrills, spills and pitch poles provide great entertainment and will raise the popularity and profile of the sport

I have cannot begin to understand the reasoning behing keeping hte commically named Star class while dropping the Tornado and not running any cat events

The RYA and Olympic committee have made a disgraceful decision which gives an insight into their "old boys network" modus operandi.

So the general public and thousands of cat sailors will look forward to 2012 exclusively monohull events with baited breath - bath tub "racing" around Poole - what a treat!

Idiots.

Star etc

On August 22nd, 2008 Sailor (anonymous) says:

U R right where are the hydrofoil Moths, or hydrofoil trimarans, where are the single outriggers from New Guinnee.

Tornado is old , Hobie 16 old , but still nice.What about Kite surfers, very fast and acrobatic, might need a different Race cource, plenty here in NZ.

And so I love the Star boat(originally dubbed Bug) .Its still a very classic simple shape and great in light airs. My grouch is more with the MEDIA, here in NZ I see a lot of Kayaks, 1 or 2, sculls, etc some windsurfers , but didn't catch any Finns , Stars ,
Tornados, or Yinglings. What ever happened to the near perfect Etchells 22 ??

The Media here ignore any medal winner who is not a NZder, it was a bit different when the Americas cup was hosted.

Hermann Otto, Whangarei (c: