Occasionally debate rises among sailors over what the appropriate term for our sport should be. While “yachting” has been a traditional, all-inclusive term for generations, “sailing” has come into much more prominent usage in the modern era, largely in order to distinguish particular formats of the sport. Out of appreciation for the sport’s heritage, I personally don’t mind the term “yachting” when it comes to sailboat racing in general. Even so, I never say that I am going “yachting”, because it does sound too formal for the athletic and competitive activity that sailing as I know it actually is. As the sailing classes in competition today are both visually and structurally a far cry from the classic yachts of yesteryear, “sailing” has emerged over “yachting” as the more popular term for sailboat racing in many, but not all, cases. While “yachting” and “sailing” can be synonymous terms in some formats of the sport, they can be separate and distinct in others.
