As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a leisure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of 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 gave 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, ruled 1685–88), made 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 popular among the affluent and nobility, but after that point the fashion did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other clubs, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some organized manner on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to monarchy in 1820, it came to be named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing fight, 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 funding made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continuing site 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 great bets were held, and the society life was superlative. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English gained power. Sailing was largely for fun and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and created a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the later half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was originally heavily put upon by the victory of America, which was designed by George Steers for a club headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and built in today’s sense, with only a model used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what science had earlier done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats were individually built, there was a requirement for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the most rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to single 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 had on an even par with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was done primarily for the nobility and the wealthy, cost was no object, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the seaworthiness of smaller craft. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft 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 emulate sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in leisure yachts. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance travel was a favourite occupation of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to boats powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing 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 solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of bigger steam yachts. Notably 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, 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 for World War II.
As larger and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many large yachts began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed for World War I. In the decade after that, big power-yacht building flourished, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the best auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of large power craft lessened in 1932, and the fashion thereafter was toward smaller, less expensive boats. From World War II, lots of small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and maintaining their own small recreational craft. The number of boats and yachtsmen has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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