As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a pleasure craft used mostly 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 originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English throne 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, reigned 1685–88), made other 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 rose as classy among the affluent and aristocracy, but after that point the fashion did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and had much naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other clubs, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some ordered fashion on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to sovereignty 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 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 location of British yacht racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the rise of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high bets were held, and the social life was wonderful. Eventually 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 persisted when the English took dominance. Sailing was largely for leisure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts took 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 large yachts was initially heavily affected by the victory of America, which was created by George Steers for a association started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in a contemporary sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what science had earlier done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there came a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to the same requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing those boats can be had on an even keel with no handicapping required. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged largely for the royal and the affluent, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller yachts came in the latter 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the hardiness of small yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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
Following the decade 1840–50, at which point steam was set to replace sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in pleasure craft. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing was a preferred activity of the wealthy. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to yachts powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of large steam yachts. Conspicuous of 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 for World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large boats began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. During the decade that followed, bigger power-yacht manufacture grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of bigger power craft fell away after 1932, and the trend thereafter was toward smaller, less pricey yachts. Following World War II, many small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and upkeeping their own small recreational boats. The amount of yachts and yachtsmen has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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