As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and secondly by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, borne from private challenges. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English monarchy 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), built 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 became classy among the wealthy and royalty, but after that time the habit did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and had great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other groups, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated method on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it was named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht group 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 perpetual setting of British yachting. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large stakes were held, and the social life was wonderful. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English took dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts took the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the later half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was originally heavily impacted by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a association led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Early 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 being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research 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 came a need for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which resulted in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly flourishing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping necessary. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity largely for the royal and the wealthy, expense was no issue, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller craft occurred 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 journey around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the seaworthiness of smaller boats. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational yachts became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, during which steam started to replace sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in pleasure yachts. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance cruising turned into a fond occupation of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of at least 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 gave active service during World War II.
As more sizeable and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger yachts started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed for World War I. In the decade following, bigger power-yacht building grew, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the biggest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of larger power craft declined from 1932, and the style from then was in preference of smaller, less pricey yachts. From World War II, many small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread loved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and keeping their own small recreational craft. The amount of craft and owners increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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