As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private challenges. 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 gave him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he called 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 the same way back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be fashionable with the affluent and nobility, but after that point the habit did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other clubs, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated method on the Thames around 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 was called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing argument, 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 perpetual site of British racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large stakes were held, and the society life was superlative. Ultimately 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 persisted when the English had power. Sailing was largely for pleasure and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised 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 organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was originally largely affected by the victory of America, which was designed by George Steers for a group started 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. Early yachts were not designed and built in today’s sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the use of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had done earlier for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had been individually built, there came a requirement for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were built. Hence, a rating rule was written, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In modern times, 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 standard specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping at all. A great example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was done primarily for the royal and the rich, cost was no object, 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 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the hardiness of small craft. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favoured 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 started to emulate sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in leisure yachts. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance sailing turned into a preferred occupation of the well off. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to those powered by the fully 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 standard for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. In particular among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed 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 was used in active service in World War II.
As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many big yachts were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced during World War I. In the decade after that, bigger power-yacht manufacture grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the biggest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of larger power yachts fell away in 1932, and the fashion thereafter was for smaller, less costly craft. Following World War II, a lot of small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and keeping their own small pleasure yachts. The number of craft and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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