Racing disciplines include matches within a fleet of sailing craft, between a pair thereof or among teams.

Racing formats include both closed courses and point-to-point contests; they may be in sheltered waters, coast-wise or on the open ocean.

Most competitions are held within defined classes or ratings that either entail one type of sailing craft to ensure a contest primarily of skill or rating the sailing craft to create classifications or handicaps.

The Barcolana regatta of the Italian yacht club Società Velica di Barcola e Grignano is currently the Guinness World Record holder as the "largest sailing race" with 2,689 boats and over 16,000 sailors at the starting line.

Often several yacht clubs will get together to hold events that can include more than 100 entered boats per race making up the regatta.

These are generally regarded as the best setups to win and the hardest for the opposing team to play offense against.

Is managed by World Speed Sailing Record Council Is common to board sports.

Harbor or buoy races are conducted in protected waters, and are quite short, usually taking anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.

This kind of race is most commonly run over one or more laps of a triangular course marked by a number of buoys.

Different levels of requirement for navigation, sleeping cooking and water storage also apply.

There is some controversy about the legality of sailing single-handed over long distances, as the navigation rules require "that every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper lookout..."; single-handed sailors can only keep a sporadic lookout, due to the need to sleep, tend to navigation, etc.

One such is the Three peaks yacht race in the UK which is a team competition involving sailing, cycling and running.

In one-design racing all boats must conform to the same standard, the class rules, thus emphasizing the skill of the skipper and crew rather than having the results depend on equipment superiority.

This kind of class is most commonly with a brand, as occurs with Laser Performance, RS Sailing, Melges and J/Boats.

A box rule specifies a maximum overall size for boats in the class, as well as features such as stability.

Competitors in these classes are then free to enter their own boat designs, as long as they do not exceed the box rule.