As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a leisure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting originated 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 gave him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure 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, sovereign 1685–88), ordered for additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting became classy among the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that time the habit did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and held much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club persisted, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after conglomerating with other clubs, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some ordered fashion on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it was known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society had been formed 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 location of British yacht racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for high bids were held, and the social life was superlative. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English gained dominance. Sailing was mostly for leisure and reached its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the latter half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was originally greatly affected by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a syndicate led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what it had already done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually built, there came a requirement for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the fastest flourishing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be held on an even basis with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged primarily for the aristocracy and the wealthy, cost was no object, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The rise and desire of smaller yachts happened in the second half of the 19th century from 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the seaworthiness of less sizeable yachts. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became more common, down to the dinghy, a favourite training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, when steam started to take the place of sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in personal craft. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing was a favoured occupation of the wealthy. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to those powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. Conspicuous 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 at least 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 for World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger craft started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, progressed in World War I. In the decade that followed, large power-yacht manufacture grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of large power craft declined from 1932, and the style after that was for smaller, less expensive boats. After World War II, lots of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a globally loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and keeping their own small recreational boats. The amount of craft and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional places on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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