As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a pleasure craft used initially 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 matches. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English throne 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 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 returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting became fashionable with the wealthy and royalty, but after that point the trend did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and had much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing 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 societies, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated manner on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to monarchy in 1820, it was named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after 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 yacht racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large bids were held, and the social life was superlative. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English had power. Sailing was mostly for leisure and reached its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts were within the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was first heavily put upon by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a group started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with only a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had earlier done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there arose a need for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was written, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the fastest growing areas in the sailing industry 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 elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing those boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting belonged largely for the nobility and the affluent, expense was no object, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller yachts occurred in the second half of the 19th century from 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 seaworthiness of smaller boats. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part 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 traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, when steam began to replace sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in personal craft. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance cruising became a favoured pastime of the wealthy. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave rise to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the second 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 construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous 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 over 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 gave active service during World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many large craft began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered from World War I. From the decade that followed, big power-yacht creation grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of bigger power craft fell away in 1932, and the style after that was toward smaller, less costly craft. From World War II, many small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a internationally loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and maintaining their own small pleasure yachts. The popularity of boats and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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