As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him 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, reigned 1685–88), ordered for other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting rose as popular with the wealthy and nobility, but after that period the habit did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated 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 a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when merging with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some organized manner 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 came to be called 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 organisation had been started 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 continued setting of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large bets were held, and the society life was splendid. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to bigger 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 power. Sailing was largely for pleasure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated 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 followed the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the latter half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was originally greatly put upon by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a association started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with just a model used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what science had previously done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there arose a need for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly flourishing areas in the sailing industry 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 aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be done on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was done primarily for the royal and the wealthy, cost was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire 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 journey 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 boats. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a preferred 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, at which point steam was set to emulate sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in pleasure vessels. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance cruising was a fond activity of the well off. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to boats powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of at least 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 reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger boats started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. In the decade after that, large power-yacht creation grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of bigger power craft fell away in 1932, and the style after that was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. Following World War II, lots of small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a internationally popular competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and keeping their own small pleasure craft. The popularity of boats and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional places on the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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