As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a pleasure craft used first by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return 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 called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), ordered for other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 punt. Yachting became fashionable among the rich and aristocracy, but after that point the habit did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when merging with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to the throne in 1820, it was called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing argument, 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 funding made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continuing location of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great bets were held, and the club life was lovely. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English took dominance. Sailing was largely for leisure and rose to its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht society, 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
Early sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the latter half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was originally greatly affected by the victory of America, which was designed by George Steers for a syndicate started 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. The first yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with just a model used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled 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 to be individually built, there came a requirement for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and edited in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly flourishing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to single requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping at all. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was an activity largely for the aristocracy and the wealthy, cost was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller craft occurred 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the value of small craft. Later 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 favoured 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
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to emulate sail power in public boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in personal craft. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance cruising became a fond activity of the well off. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of large 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 at least 150. The Mayflower, bought by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and gave active service for World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many large craft began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, was furthered for World War I. From the decade after, big power-yacht manufacture blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of large power yachts fell away from 1932, and the fashion after that was for smaller, less costly yachts. From World War II, many small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and maintaining their own small leisure craft. The amount of craft and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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