As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became a pleasure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English monarchy in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him 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), ordered for additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became fashionable for the rich and nobility, but after that period the fashion did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had much naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by joining with other organisations, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated manner on the Thames about 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 called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht group had been formed at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal funding made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continuing setting of British yacht racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the rise of George IV. Each member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large bids were held, and the society life was lovely. Ultimately 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 dominance. Sailing was largely for pleasure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was started 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 design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the second half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was originally largely affected by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a association 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. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in a contemporary sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the use of the research of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what science had previously done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there was a requirement for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and amended in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to single requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for such boats can be done on an even keel with no handicapping at all. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done mostly for the nobility and the affluent, money was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller craft came 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of smaller boats. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became more common, down to the dinghy, a preferred 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
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam was set to emulate sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in pleasure yachts. Large power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing turned into a favourite activity of the rich. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, several 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 design of large steam yachts. Notably of 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 more than 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 better quality internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger craft started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed during World War I. From the decade after that, big power-yacht building blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of larger power yachts declined in 1932, and the fashion after that was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. Following World War II, lots of small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a internationally popular competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and keeping their own small pleasure boats. The popularity of yachts and yachtsmen is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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