Transforming an organization to maintain its mission: the yachting federation facing the development of sailing schools: the story of a double rationalization in sport

Like other associative groupings of the same kind, the federation in charge of sailing in France was destabilized in the second half of the 20th century by the irruption of autonomous groups of practitioners escaping the authority with which the State entrusted it in 1945. It was the case, after war, when the sailing schools offering technical drills freed from any training to regatta took their rise. How did this federation make to keep to sports the priority which it had reserved for it until then, while at the same time it agreed to accommodate these outdoor associations? The study of the federal archives shows that the changes of structure that it did since 1959 lies within an attempt at sporting rationalization of its organization, which had to get it change from exclusive organization to an organization of mass. Not having succeeded in making sailing schools a first step towards the competitive events, the federation subjected its operation with an economic rationalization in order to find new resources making it possible to offer to the greatest number a permanent sports activity. It is thus as a funding source that the sailing schools served sport. Adapted from the source document.