International Yachting in the Late Nineteenth Century: French, British, and American Inter-Relationships and Organisation

Abstract

In the late nineteenth century the yachting world was the scene of intense debate. For certain of the French participants in regattas, the main objective was to fight against the hegemony of the British and the imposition of their rules. This topic was the subject of much discussion in the nascent international sailing organisations, which were created at that time. In order to diminish the influence of British regulation, French representatives suggested rules that were developed in France but were inspired by American standards. In fact, the French position revealed the fact that there was more at stake than yachting alone and the controversy extended into questions of social status and international politics. French organisers saw this as an opportunity to strengthen their power within French yachting at a time when this activity was still developing and establishing its own institutions. Above all, French regatta competitors asserted their elite status within French society, reinforcing the idea that their group represented an increasingly important class. Their established geopolitical connections enabled them to promote and impose their values, and serve their own interests and ideas at the national economic and political level, where they had vested interests. In particular, these sportsmen were influenced by the widespread Anglophobia in France at the end of the nineteenth century, which balanced the better-known Anglophilia of figures such as Pierre de Coubertin. Thus, the role of French navigators in international institutions was part of a wider concern to solidify their elite status.

Notes

1. To better understand the role that English people play in the sport, we turn to Richard Holt's analysis, ‘English influence on French Sport: ‘“Anglomania” and National Revival, 1870–1914’, Stadion 27 (2001): 179–188; also to Roy Porter's text, ‘Les Anglais et les loisirs’, in L'avènement des loisirs 1850–1960, ed. Alain Corbin (Paris: Aubier, 1995), 21–54.

2. Georges Vigarello and Richard Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé: Gymnastes et sportifs’, in Histoire du corps: T2 De la révolution à la grande guerre, ed. Alain Corbin, Jean-Jacques Courtine, and Georges Vigarello (Paris: ed. du Seuil, 2005), 332.

3. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé’, 340.

4. ‘La France du sport’, in Naissance du sport moderne, ed. Bruno Dumons, Gilles Pollet, and Muriel Berjat (Lyon: a Manufacture, 1987), 34.

5. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé’, 365.

6. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillés’, 342.

7. Richard Holt, Sport and the British: A Modern History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 109.

8. François Mougel, ‘La voile à Paris’, Le Figaro Illustré, August 18, 1894: 151.

9. Richard Sibley, ‘Sport et classes sociales en Angleterre; Football, Rugby, Cricket’ in John Atherton, Le Sport en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-Unis, (Nancy; Presse Universitaires de nacy, 1988), p. 24.

10. Guichet Nicolas, ‘Des quais de Bercy aux jeux de Paris’, La plaisance, Monuments Historiques 199 (1995), 18.

11. Vigarello and Holt, 'Le corps travaillé’, 333.

12. L'Illustration, July 16, 1887.

13. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé’, 347.

14. L'illustration, July 16, 1887.

15. See Patrick Clastres, Jeux olympiques: Un siècle de passions (Paris: ed. Les Quatre chemins, 2008).

16. ‘Règlement intérieur du YCF, in Dossier Plaisance’, Archives du Musée de la Marine, Paris, p. 24.

17. Georges Vigarello, ‘Le temps du sport’, in L'avènement des loisirs 1850–1960, ed. Alain Corbin (Paris: Aubier, 1995), 198–9.

18. Pierre Arnaud, ‘Pratiques et pratiquants, les transformations de la sociabilité sportive’, in La naissance du mouvement sportif assocatif en France, ed. Pierre Arnaud and Jean Camy (Lyon: PUL, 1986), 173.

19. ‘YCF Statute’, in Dossier Plaisance (Paris: Archives du Musée de la Marine, 1867).

20. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé’, 327.

21. Arnaud, ‘Pratiques et pratiquants’, 184.

22. In 1942 under the Vichy government, this group became the Fédération Française de la Voile (French Sailing Federation). In 1945, it included 12 leagues and became the Fédération Française du Yachting (French Yachting Federation) until 1974 when it went back to the former name of Fédération Française de la Voile.

23. Pierre Singaravélou and Julien Soez, L'empire des sports, une histoire de la mondialisation culturelle (Paris: Belin, 2010), 16–17.

24. See Alfred D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of Industrial Enterprise (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1962).

25. L'illustration, July 16, 1887.

26. In 1881, under the leadership of Edward, Prince of Wales, three clubs (the Royal Thames Yacht Club, the Royal Yacht Squadron and the New Thames Yacht Club) proposed to their national federation (the Yacht Racing Association) a system which would be valid across the entire British territory and which they hoped to impose in any country where their members competed.

27. Maurice Aghulon, le cercle dans la France bourgeoise (1810–1840), étude d'une mutation de la société (Paris: A. Colin, 1977), 59.

28. Eric Vibart, ‘La règle du jeu’, Saga de la Plaisance, Voiles et Voiliers, Hors-série 12 (1997), 18.

29. Pierre Francastel, Art et technique aux XIXè et XXè siècle (Paris: Denoël, 1991).

30. Yachting Gazette, May 22, 1903: 73.

31. Le Yacht, November 22, 1879.

32. L'illustration, July 16, 1887.

33. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé’, 348.

34. L'illustration, July 16, 1887.

35. Le Yacht, July 12, 1890.

36. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé’, 347.

37. Sébastien Darbon, Diffusion des sports et impérialisme anglo-saxon (Paris: MSH, 2008), 64.

38. Inspired by Steven Riess, cited in John Atherton, Le sport en Grande-Bretagne et aux Etats-unis, (Nancy: Presse universitaires de Nancy, 1988), 10.

39. Darbon, Diffusion des sports, 62

40. ‘Règlement intérieur du YCF, in Dossier Plaisance’, Archives du Musée de la Marine, Paris, p25.

41. François Mougel, ‘La voile á Paris’.

42. François Mougel, ‘La voile à Paris’, 151, 152.

43. André Drevon, Bilan officiel de l'Exposition universelle de 1900: Les Jeux olympiques oubliés (Paris: ed. du CNRS, 2000).

44. See Joris Vincent, ‘Une histoire revisitée du rugby : une cohérence dans les évolutions techniques’, in L'homme en mouvement: Histoire et anthropologie des techniques sportives, ed. Luc Robène and Yvon Léziart (Rennes: PUR 2006), 130–46.

45. Darbon, Diffusion des sports, 50.

46. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé’, 349.

47. Le Yacht, September 6, 1879.

48. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé’, 361.

49. ‘Regarding the America Cup’, L'illustration, May 11, 1900.

50. Le Yacht, May 20, 1882.

51. Le Yacht, July 19, 1879.

52. Francois Crouzet, ‘Quand les Anglais étaient maîtres de mers’, Les collections de l'histoire: 3000 ans sur la mer, HS. No. 8 (2000).

53. Francois Crouzet, ‘Quand les Anglais étaient maîtres de mers’, Les collections de l'histoire: 3000 ans sur la mer, HS. No. 8 (2000).

54. Yachting Gazette, March 9, 1900.

55. Le Yacht, November 2, 1900: 555.

56. Yachting Gazette, March 9, 1900: 41.

57. Le Yacht, July 3, 1880.

58. Le Yacht, January 19, 1884: 17.

59. Le Yacht, November 22, 1879.

60. Yachting Gazette, July 17, 1903: 378.

61. Philippe Daryl, En yacht, mœurs britanniques (Paris: Hetzel, 1885).

62. M. Agulhon, ‘La France et l'Angleterre signent l'Entente Cordiale’, Archives de France, http://www.archivesdefrance.culture.gouv.fr/action-culturelle/celebrations-nationales/recueil-2004/vie-politique-et-institutions/la-france-et-l-angleterre-signent-l-entente-cordial (accessed November 09, 2010).

63. Le Yacht, August 28, 1897: 415.

64. Le Yacht, August 28, 1897: 415.

65. Le Yacht, October 13, 1900: 488.

66. Le Yacht, April 22, 1882.

67. Le Yacht, December 6, 1879.

68. Marcel Mauss, La nation et l'internationalisme, æuvres, cohésion sociales et division de la sociologie (Paris: Les éditions de minuit, 1969), 626–34.

69. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé’, 340.

70. Holt, Sport and the British, 227.

71. L'Illustration, October 6, 1900: 215.

72. Yachting Gazette, June 12, 1903: 309.

73. Yachting Gazette, January 26, 1900: 38.

74. Vigarello and Holt, ‘Le corps travaillé’, 350.

75. Le Yacht, February 23, 1900: 66.

76. An alliance between the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Italy.

77. Yachting Gazette, July 17, 1903: 377–378.

78. Jean Saint-Martin, Éducations physiques françaises et exemplarités étrangères entre 1815 et 1914 (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2003), 76.

79. Pierre de Coubertin, ‘La France et l'Europe’ (paper presented at the Conférence de Bolbec, CIO, Bolbec, France. September 24, 1888).

80. Yachting Gazette, June 15, 1900: 202.

81. Max Weber, Le savant et le politique (Paris: Union générale d’édition, 1958).