As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure 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 other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting rose as popular among the rich and aristocracy, but after that time the trend 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 association, with great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when merging with other societies, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some organized fashion on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it came to be called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society 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 location of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large stakes were held, and the club life was splendid. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats were raised 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 took power. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts were within the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the later half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was initially greatly put upon by the win 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.) was named after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with only a model used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the use of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had already done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there came a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were built. Hence, a rating rule was created, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In the present day, one of the fastest growing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to standard specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be had on an even basis with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity largely for the nobility and the rich, money was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller craft happened in the second 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of less sizeable yachts. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a preferred 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 was set to emulate sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in leisure vessels. Large power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance travel turned into a fond occupation of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then made way to yachts powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had 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 was used in active service during World War II.
As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger yachts started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. During the decade following, large power-yacht manufacture flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that point the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of bigger power boats fell away in 1932, and the trend thereafter was in preference of smaller, less pricey boats. From World War II, lots of small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually sailing and upkeeping their own small pleasure yachts. The number of craft and owners increased steadily, not only in the traditional places along the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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