Sailing has been included as an event at every Summer Olympics since 1896 except the 1904 Summer Olympics. At the 1980 Summer Olympics sailing events were organised into six classes. In each class seven races in a particular sailing discipline were contested between the 19 and 29 July 1980. The Olympic city in 1980 was Moscow, but all sailing events took place in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Pirita, in Tallinn in present-day Estonia. At the time Tallinn was part of the Soviet Union. Events at this olympiad used triangular-type Olympic courses.

Tallinn is the capital and most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of about 461,000 and administratively lies in the Harju maakond (county). Tallinn is the main governmental, financial, industrial, and cultural centre of Estonia. It is located 187 km (116 mi) northwest of the country's second largest city, Tartu; however, only 80 km (50 mi) south of Helsinki, Finland, also 320 km (200 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia, 300 km (190 mi) north of Riga, Latvia, and 380 km (240 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden. From the 13th century until the first half of the 20th century, Tallinn was known in most of the world by variants of its other historical name Reval.