The site on the nearshore waters of the Yellow Sea beside Fushan Bay in Shinan District was the factory area of the Beihai Shipyard before it was anything else. Rebuilt at an investment of 3.3 billion yuan, the centre covers 45 hectares: a 30-hectare competition area on the water and a 15-hectare area on land for development after the Games. Construction began in 2004 and the venue was completed in 2006. On land it holds the administrative and race management centre, apartments and a centre for athletes, a media centre, and a logistics and function centre; the site also takes in Yandaoshan Park, the Olympic Sailing Museum and the Qingdao International Conference Center. On the water, breakwaters and a pier enclose the course, and one breakwater, 534 metres long, is named Lover's Dam.
From the journal
Fushan Bay: Water That Was a Shipyard
A 45-hectare Olympic sailing venue raised on the yard of a state shipyard, where eleven events were sailed in the summer of 2008 and where a 534-metre breakwater is still called Lover's Dam.
In the same city · Qingdao ↗From Shipyard to Course
The Games and After
In 2008 Qingdao and Beijing co-hosted the Olympic sailing competitions, and eleven events across nine windsurfing, dinghy, skiff and keelboat classes were sailed here by 400 competitors; at that year's Paralympics 80 competitors took part across three different classes of keelboat. An international broadcasting centre and a purpose-built hotel were constructed for the Games. The city had held its first sailing competition back in 1904. Declared a Qingdao cultural relic protection unit and historical and cultural district in 2011, the centre has stayed a working venue: a stopover on the Volvo Ocean Race and the Clipper Round the World Race, host of world championships and Sailing World Cup events between the 2013-14 and 2016 seasons, and host of the ILCA 7 and ILCA 6 World Championships in 2025.
