As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a leisure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting began 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 presented him with a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure 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, sovereign 1685–88), built additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting became fashionable for the wealthy and royalty, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and held large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other societies, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated method on the Thames about 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 was named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society had been initiated 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 perpetual location of British racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large bids were held, and the social life was wonderful. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English gained dominance. Sailing was largely for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began 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 until the later half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was initially greatly put upon by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a group started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with only a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there arose a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in sailing 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 areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be held on an even par with no handicapping required. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done primarily for the aristocracy and the rich, money was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller boats 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 demonstrated the hardiness of small craft. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft 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 was set to take the place of sail power in market boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in leisure vessels. Large power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance cruising turned into a fond activity of the rich. The first 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 fashion for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only 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. Notably within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of at least 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 better quality internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger boats began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. From the decade after, large power-yacht building grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of big power boats declined from 1932, and the fashion after that was in preference of smaller, less pricey yachts. After World War II, lots of small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a widespread loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and keeping their own small recreational boats. The number of yachts and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional places by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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