As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht was 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. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private games. English yachting started 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 sent 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), made more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting became popular with the affluent and aristocracy, but after that period the habit did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and had great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some ordered method 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 following a racing argument, 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 perpetual site of British yachting. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great stakes were held, and the club life was wonderful. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English gained control. Sailing was mostly for fun and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed 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 lines 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 originally greatly impacted by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a club led 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. The first 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 called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application 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 built, there was a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which is found in the International Rule, taken on 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 single 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 held on an even par with no handicapping at all. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity mostly for the nobility and the affluent, cost was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller yachts happened 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the value of smaller craft. Later in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to emulate sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in leisure yachts. Large power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing turned into a fond activity of the wealthy. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to yachts powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of years. By the latter half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of bigger steam yachts. Notably among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed 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 in World War II.
As bigger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many big boats were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. In the decade after that, large power-yacht creation blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of big power craft declined after 1932, and the style after that was for smaller, less pricey boats. Following World War II, lots of small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a widespread beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and keeping their own small pleasure yachts. The popularity of craft and yachtsmen is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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