As the Dutch came to 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 on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of private challenges. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 1685–88), built more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be fashionable with the affluent and royalty, but after that point the habit did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and had much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other organisations, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some ordered fashion on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it was known as 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 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 continued setting of British yachting. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large stakes were held, and the society life was lovely. 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 held control. Sailing was largely for pleasure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht association, 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
Early sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the latter half of the 19th century. The style of large yachts was initially largely affected by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a association headed 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. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in a contemporary sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the science of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what it had done earlier for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there arose a requirement for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were built. Thus, a rating rule was created, which resulted in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended 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 manufactured to standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be done on an even keel with no handicapping required. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done primarily for the aristocracy and the wealthy, cost was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller craft happened 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) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the value of less sizeable craft. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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
After the decade 1840–50, when steam started to take the place of sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in personal yachts. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high element, and long-distance sailing turned into a preferred occupation of the affluent. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to yachts powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of bigger 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 over 150. The Mayflower, commissioned by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and saw active service for World War II.
As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many big craft were using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. During the decade following that, large power-yacht building grew, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of larger power boats lessened in 1932, and the style after that was in preference of smaller, less expensive yachts. From World War II, lots of small naval boats were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a globally loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and maintaining their own small recreational boats. The number of boats and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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