For several millennia, the Mediterranean was the cradle of civilisations and empires. The Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, and Arabs all treated it as their own. The Romans even called it mare nostrum, “our sea”. This is a view shared by those who practise countless sports, with this issue highlighting two: surfing and 470 Class Sailing.
The origin of surfing is disputed by the Peruvians and the Polynesians, with both affirming it originated thousands of years ago; in truth, surfing was born in the Pacific Ocean and we know it was already common practice in Hawaiian society by around 1,000 years ago. Yet it was not until 1779 that news of what at the time was a curious practice reached the West, through the diaries of Lieutenant James King, who accompanied the famous Captain James Cook on a voyage to discover new lands. Nevertheless, it would take until the early twentieth century for the sport to become popular worldwide.
In Portugal, the first accounts of its practice date back to 1920 in Leça da Palmeira, but it was in the 1940s that surfing became popular on Carcavelos beach, where the first bodysurfing club was founded. In the 1960s, the sport’s first big name emerged, Pedro Martins de Lima, a man still considered the “father” of Portuguese surfing. However, it wasn’t until 1989 that the Portuguese Surfing Federation was founded, being the first Portuguese competition with a monetary prize in 1991.
Surfing is practised all over the Mediterranean, from Lebanon to the south of Spain and, of course, on the western and southern Portuguese coasts, which, although on the Atlantic, are strongly influenced by the Mediterranean, what means good waves and fair weather practically all year round.
The predominant swell is north-westerly; thus, the west coast is a favourite for surfers, but, in the south, the Algarve coast is also full of popular spots, from Praia do Tonel to Ilha de Tavira.
The practice of surfing is widespread in Portugal, both among keen amateurs and the professionals who dedicate to it their lives in the national and international circuit competitions held at Portuguese surf spots.
Portugal’s exceptional surfing conditions attract surfers from all over the world, who could only marvel at the gigantic wave ridden by Garrett McNamara in Nazaré in 2013, measured at around 30 metres, earning him a place in the Guinness World Records.
Regarding the 470 Class Sailing, it is an Olympic discipline that owes its name to the length of the boat, which is 470 cm long, and which is contested in men’s and women’s races. It has been an official boat in sailing competitions since 1969 and became an Olympic class at the Montreal Games in 1976.
The 470 Class is designed for two crew members and is both fast and highly sensitive to the sailors’ movements. Moreover, it was the first Olympic sailing discipline to include women.
At the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Portugal is proud to have four representatives in these disciplines: Yolanda Hopkins and Teresa Bonvalot in surfing and Carolina João and Diogo Costa in 470 Class Sailing. Somehow, this stamp issue recognises and congratulates their participation in the Olympiad.
Francisco Pedro Lyon de Castro
