As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of 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 presented him with 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, sovereign 1685–88), built more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be fashionable among the rich and aristocracy, but after that point the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and held large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by joining with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some organized method on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to sovereignty 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 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 perpetual setting of British racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large stakes were held, and the society life was wonderful. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English held power. Sailing was largely for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht group, 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 first sailing yachts were within 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 large yachts was originally heavily impacted by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a syndicate headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with just a model used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such study had already done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats were individually built, there came a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which resulted in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. In the present day, one of the fastest flourishing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping at all. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged largely for the royal and the affluent, cost was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The rise and preference of smaller craft occurred in the later half of the 19th century out of 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 demonstrated the seaworthiness of smaller yachts. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational yachts became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, at which point steam started to replace sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed increasingly in personal craft. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance cruising turned into a favourite activity of the rich. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then made way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht archetype for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the design of large steam yachts. Conspicuous among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed 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 for World War II.
As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger yachts started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered in World War I. In the decade after, bigger power-yacht building grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of large power craft lessened after 1932, and the style after that was for smaller, less pricey yachts. After World War II, many small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and keeping their own small recreational yachts. The number of yachts and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places along the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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