Technology and Its Role in Making Dinghy Sailing More Accessible: Innovation Networks in the USA, United Kingdom and France

The constant evolution of new designs is a distinctive feature in dinghy sailing in common with other Olympic sports linked to technological developments (e.g. cycling, snowsports). Using an innovation network level of analysis the influence and trajectory of plywood, fibre reinforced, and polypropylene plastic technologies are used to explore how technologies are adopted in different socio-cultural circumstances. Five of the more popular dinghies with international spread (1946–80) that originated in the USA, the United Kingdom or France are used as the focus. This allows comparisons of the influences on technology and contrasts across the four decades. The contextual factors of sailing in the 1930s before the period under scrutiny are explored including how chemical industry advances during the war underpinned subsequent developments. Each innovation network coalesced around a common mission of expanding the sport by reducing the cost of dinghies through a new technology. In addition, each network displayed distinctive strategies connected to the influences of educational, political, media, build-it-yourself or corporate actors. Such interactions add to the understanding of the complex evolutionary dynamics of technology-first sports and include observations on the timescales from early inventive steps to the mainstream adoption of a technology in a sport.