As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became 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. Racing yachts 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 restoration to the English monarchy 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, sovereign 1685–88), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be popular with the rich and nobility, but after that point the fashion did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had great naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club persisted, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when merging with other societies, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some ordered 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 the throne in 1820, it came to be known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht organisation had been formed 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 continuing setting of British yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the rise of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large bets were held, and the club life was superlative. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English had control. Sailing was largely for leisure and rose to its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was first largely put upon by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a group headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had earlier done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually custom-built, there came a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly flourishing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to standard dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping required. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was an activity largely for the nobility and the affluent, expense was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller yachts occurred in the latter half of the 19th century in 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 proved the hardiness of less sizeable boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational yachts became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam started to take the place of sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in leisure vessels. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance cruising became a favourite occupation of the well off. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to boats powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of large steam yachts. Conspicuous 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 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 was used in active service for World War II.
As bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large craft were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced during World War I. From the decade after, bigger power-yacht creation grew, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of larger power boats fell away from 1932, and the fashion thereafter was in preference of smaller, less expensive craft. After World War II, lots of small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and keeping their own small recreational boats. The popularity of boats and owners increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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