1908 Summer Olympics / Motorboat

Motor boating at the IV Olympic Games
information
venue	Southampton
Competition venue	Southampton Water
Nations	2
Athletes	14 (1 woman, 13 men)
date	28-29 August 1908
decisions	3

At the IV Olympic Games in London in 1908 , three competitions in motor boating took place after it had already been an Olympic demonstration sport in 1900 . All three competitions were 40 nautical miles (74.08 kilometers) in Southampton Bay , five rounds of eight nautical miles (approximately 15 kilometers) each.

Some of the arriving boats did not come across the starting line. A total of six boats took part in the three competitions, five of them British and one French. Due to extremely unfavorable weather conditions, only one of the mostly two started boats was able to reach the destination.

Medal table

space	country				total
1	Great Britain	2	-	-	2
2	France	1	-	-	1

Boats and crews

Boat (land)	crew	Class a	class B	Class C	Medals	Remarks
Camille FRA	Thubron	gold	-	-	1-0-0	According to the historian De Wael , three unknown sailors took part in the competitions on the Camille .
Dylan GBR	Scott-Ellis Fentiman	not in target	-	-	0-0-0	The Dylan only took part in the canceled first class A race.
Gyrinus GBR	Thornycroft Redwood Field-Richards	-	gold	gold	2-0-0
Quicksilver GBR	Gorham Gorham	-	not in target	-	0-0-0	It is unclear whether Gorham's wife Sophia was on board.
Sea Dog GBR	Wright Weston	-	-	not in target	0-0-0
Wolseley-Siddeley GBR	Grosvenor Clowes Laycock / Atkinson	not in target	-	-	0-0-0	Laycock only started in the first race of the A-Class, Atkinson only in the second.

Results

The competitions were originally supposed to take place on July 11, 1908. So far, no documents have been found that provide a reason for the postponement to 28/29. Specify August 1908. Only participant Hugh Grosvenor had a noticeable advantage from this relocation. He wanted to take part in the prestigious Harmsworth Cup in New York with his boat on August 2, 1908 . Three weeks for the transport from Great Britain to the USA were scarce at the time, with the relocation he had almost four weeks for the return transport. With his position as Duke of Westminster , he had enough influence to push for this relocation.

A class (40 miles)

space	country	athlete
1	FRA	Émile Thubron
2	-	not forgiven
3	-	not forgiven
DNF	GBR	Hugh Grosvenor George Clowes Joseph Laycock George H. Atkinson
DNF	GBR	Thomas Scott-Ellis Alfred Fentiman

Date: 28./29. August 1908

In the A-Class competition, all boats were allowed to start with any size. Initially, it was supposed to mark the start of the competitions on August 28th, but the abandonment of the Dylan's crew and bad weather conditions prevented this. The new opponent for Hugh Grosvenor his boat Wolseley-Siddeley , named after the built-in car engines was that Camille of Émile Thubron , the only French boat. It was named after Thubron's compatriot Camille du Gast , who had won a Mediterranean race. The Wolseley-Siddeley looked clearly superior at first, but then ran aground and had to end the race. Thubron won roughly after 2:26:53 hours.

B class (40 miles)

space	country	athlete
1	GBR	Thomas Thornycroft Bernard Redwood John Field-Richards
2	-	not forgiven
3	-	not forgiven
DNF	GBR	John Marshall Gorham Sophia Gorham

Date: August 28, 1908

In the B-class competition, boats less than 60 feet (approximately 20 meters) long were allowed to compete . The first opponent was the Gyrinus by Thomas Thornycroft , who prospectively an additional crew member had specially taken to Wasserausschöpfen on board on the weather, the other boat, the Quicksilver of John Marshall Gorham . It is unclear whether his wife Sophia Gorham accompanied him, who would be the only woman in these competitions. After an initial tie, the Gyrinus pulled away and when the Quicksilver ran water into the boat, Gorham gave up. Thornycroft, on the other hand, probably had no problems reaching the finish line safely and clinching the first Olympic victory in the new discipline of motor boating in 2:28:58 hours .

C class (40 miles)

space	country	athlete
1	GBR	Thomas Thornycroft Bernard Redwood John Field-Richards
2	-	not forgiven
3	-	not forgiven
DNF	GBR	Warwick Wright Thomas Weston

Date: August 29, 1908

In the competition of the C-class, only the smallest boats, which were a maximum of 8 meters long, were allowed to start. Despite four entries, only two boats started, on the one hand the winner of the previous day, the Gyrinus by Thomas Thornycroft , on the other hand the Sea Dog by Warwick Wright . Again, both opponents initially seemed equal, but due to a defect in the engine that had overheated, the Sea Dog was forced to give up. After 2 hours, 28 minutes and 26 seconds, the gyrinus reached the finish and became the first and only double Olympic champion in motorboat competitions.

Motor boating after Olympia

As the small number of participants and the high failure rate showed, motor boating was hardly suitable for the Olympic Games. Therefore it was discontinued as an Olympic sport , although at that time motorboat races were popular in some European countries, including Germany. After 1908, motor boating was never again Olympic.

Web links

• Motor boating at the 1908 Olympics in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Official report of the Olympic Games 1908 (PDF, 12.4 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Announcement of the motorboat competitions at the Olympic Games 1908, pages 518 and 519, (PDF; 14.7 MB)