As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting began 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 sent 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, sovereign 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became popular among the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that point the habit did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held much naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when merging with other societies, it became known as 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 funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to monarchy in 1820, it came to be called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht organisation had been formed at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal sponsorship made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continuing setting of British yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for high bets were held, and the society life was lovely. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English had dominance. Sailing was for the most part for pleasure and reached its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated 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 until the latter half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was originally largely put upon by the victory of America, which was designed 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 victory at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with merely a model used. Not until the second 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 craft of sails and rigging what such science had done earlier for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there arose a requirement for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were built. Thus, a rating rule was created, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the fastest blossoming areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be done on an even par with no handicapping required. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was done mostly for the nobility and the rich, cost was no issue, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller yachts came in the later 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of smaller craft. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular 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, during which steam began to emulate sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in leisure vessels. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance travel turned into a favourite occupation of the affluent. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. Conspicuous among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of over 150. The Mayflower, commissioned by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and gave active service in World War II.
As bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many large yachts were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. From the decade that followed, big power-yacht building grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of larger power boats lessened in 1932, and the fashion from then was for smaller, less pricey boats. After World War II, many small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and maintaining their own small leisure boats. The number of craft and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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