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The oldest video footage of junior and youth sailing

by Magnus Smith 1 Dec 2024 12:00 GMT
Cadet Week at Burnham in the 1950s © Yachting World

Our video archive is fully searchable, and updated weekly with the latest sailing videos, but here we step back in time to see what is the oldest footage we can uncover. Our theme is children/youth this week.

With this in mind, we can also remind you of the excellent charities which carry out important supportive work for our young people:

And since it was only a fortnight ago, let us not forget Children in Need. Any of these deserve a donation, if you can spare something.

In chronological order, the best videos we could find are...

Children's rowing and sailing races at Thorpeness, UK in the 1930s. Proper 'Swallows and Amazons' style dinghies are used!

Scottish schools and universities compete on the Clyde, Scotland - 1955

1950s schoolboys make their own dinghies - Zaandijk, Netherlands.

Two boys sail a VJ on the shores of Sydney Harbour - this is fiction rather than a factual video, but still great to see the sailing.

British Moth sailing at Lymington in 1960 shows kids racing from Salterns SC (UK).

Cowes Week 1967 has a focus on youth (but some of the video is adult sailing).

Puffin Junior Frostbite Regatta 1968 at Southend-on-Sea, UK.

Manly Juniors 1979 - rigging up, sailing (narrated) - Australia.

What of the rest?

Do you know the location of other old videos from the analogue era? We would love to share these with sailors worldwide. You can submit video links for immediate review.

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