As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a leisure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of private games. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English monarchy 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 1685–88), ordered for additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be classy for the affluent and royalty, but after that period the habit did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other societies, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated fashion on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to the throne in 1820, it was known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht group had been initiated at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal funding made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continuing site of British yachting. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great bets were held, and the social life was wonderful. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English held dominance. Sailing was for the most part for fun and rose to its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and created a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts were within the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the later half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was first greatly put upon by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a club started 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. Early yachts were not designed and crafted in today’s sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had already done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there was a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and edited in 1919. Today, one of the most rapidly growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing these boats can be done on an even playing field with no handicapping at all. A prime example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting belonged primarily for the royal and the rich, cost was no object, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller boats came 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 trip around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of less sizeable yachts. Later in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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, when steam began to take the place of sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in pleasure vessels. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance sailing turned into a favoured activity of the well off. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to yachts powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of large steam yachts. In particular within 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 over 150. The Mayflower, bought by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and saw active service for World War II.
As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger craft started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed during World War I. From the decade after that, large power-yacht building blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of bigger power yachts declined after 1932, and the trend after that was for smaller, less expensive yachts. Following World War II, lots of small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and upkeeping their own small leisure boats. The number of yachts and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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