As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a pleasure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private games. English yachting began 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) leisure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), ordered for more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be classy with the affluent and royalty, but after that point the fashion did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other societies, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some ordered fashion 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 was then called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association 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 yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the rise of George IV. Each member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great stakes were held, and the social life was splendid. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English had control. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and reached its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts followed the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was originally heavily affected by the victory of America, which was created by George Steers for a syndicate 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. The first yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with only a model for an outline. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what it had previously done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there came a requirement for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, 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 standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be done on an even par with no handicapping at all. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity mostly for the royal and the affluent, expense was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion 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 journey around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of less sizeable craft. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly 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, craft of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to emulate sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in pleasure craft. Bigger power yachts were progressed to a high element, and long-distance sailing became a preferred occupation of the wealthy. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to boats powered by the completely 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 majority were exclusively power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of large steam yachts. In particular 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 more than 150. The Mayflower, purchased by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and saw active service during World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger boats started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. From the decade following that, large power-yacht building flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of bigger power craft declined in 1932, and the style after that was toward smaller, less costly yachts. After World War II, lots of small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and maintaining their own small recreational yachts. The number of boats and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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