As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a pleasure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English monarchy 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 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 punt. Yachting was found to be classy with the rich and royalty, but after that period the habit did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and held large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, 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 manner on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to the throne in 1820, it came to be known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing argument, 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 perpetual location of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for high stakes were held, and the club life was superlative. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English held dominance. Sailing was mostly for leisure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the later half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was originally greatly affected by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a group led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in the modern sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had earlier done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had to be individually built, there came a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule was created, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. In modern times, one of the fastest growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing such boats can be done on an even playing field with no handicapping at all. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity primarily for the royal and the wealthy, money was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The rise and popularity of smaller yachts occurred 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the hardiness of smaller boats. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, when steam began to replace sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in leisure yachts. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing was a preferred pastime of the affluent. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries carrying 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 only power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the design of bigger steam yachts. Notably within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of more than 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 gave active service for World War II.
As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger yachts started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed for World War I. In the decade following, large power-yacht building grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of larger power boats lessened after 1932, and the trend after that was toward smaller, less costly boats. From World War II, a lot of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a internationally loved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and keeping their own small leisure yachts. The number of boats and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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