As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), built additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting rose as popular among the affluent and nobility, but after that period the fashion did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, with large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other groups, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some ordered manner on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to sovereignty in 1820, it was then known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association had been initiated at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal patronage made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continued setting of British yacht racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bets were held, and the society life was splendid. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English gained power. Sailing was for the most part for pleasure and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the second half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was originally greatly impacted by the victory of America, which was created by George Steers for a association headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and crafted in today’s sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had previously done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there was a need for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was written, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be held on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting belonged largely for the nobility and the affluent, money was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The rise and desire of smaller boats happened in the latter half of the 19th century in the sailing of the Englishmen R.T. McMullen, a stockbroker, and E.F. Knight, a barrister and journalist. A voyage around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of less sizeable craft. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam was set to replace sail power in market boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in personal vessels. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance sailing became a preferred occupation of the well off. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of large steam yachts. In particular of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of more than 150. The Mayflower, purchased by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and was used in active service during World War II.
As more sizeable and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger craft started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, was furthered in World War I. From the decade that followed, big power-yacht building blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of big power craft lessened from 1932, and the style from then was in preference of smaller, less pricey craft. Following World War II, lots of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a widespread loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and upkeeping their own small recreational craft. The number of craft and sailors has increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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