As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English royalty 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, reigned 1685–88), ordered for additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting became classy for the rich and nobility, but after that point the fashion 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 organization, with much naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by joining with other groups, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated fashion on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to the throne in 1820, it was then known as 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 association 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 setting of British yacht racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large stakes were held, and the society life was splendid. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased 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 had power. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and set a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht club, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the later half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was initially heavily impacted by the victory of America, which was created by George Steers for a club led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with just a model being used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what science had earlier done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had to be individually built, there came a need for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was decreed, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly growing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing those boats can be had on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done primarily for the nobility and the wealthy, expense was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The rise and popularity of smaller yachts occurred in the later 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. Later in the 20th century, particularly 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, yachts of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam started to emulate sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in pleasure yachts. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance travel was a favourite activity of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture of more sizeable steam yachts. In particular 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 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 bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many large yachts started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. In the decade following that, large power-yacht creation flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the biggest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of bigger power yachts fell away from 1932, and the fashion from then was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. From World War II, a lot of small naval craft were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and upkeeping their own small pleasure boats. The popularity of craft and yachtsmen has increased steadily, not only in the traditional places by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
Looking for boat cleaning Brisbane ? Talk to Elite Yacht Services. We do great work at competitive prices.