As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private games. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English royalty 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), built additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be classy among the rich and aristocracy, but after that point the trend did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and held large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race 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 clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some organized method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to monarchy in 1820, it came to be 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 club had been formed at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal sponsorship made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continuing setting of British yachting. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the rise of George IV. Each member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great bets were held, and the club life was splendid. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English had dominance. Sailing was for the most part for pleasure and rose to its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was first largely put upon by the success of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a association headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such science had earlier done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there was a desire for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was written, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and edited in 1919. Today, one of the fastest growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to single dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing these boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping necessary. 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 done primarily for the aristocracy and the wealthy, expense was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller craft happened in the later 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of smaller yachts. Later in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure yachts became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, at which point steam was set to take the place of sail power in market boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in pleasure vessels. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high standard, and long-distance travel was a favoured pastime of the affluent. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to boats powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion 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 with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom 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 sailed 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 for World War II.
As bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger boats were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. In the decade following, bigger power-yacht building blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of bigger power yachts fell away in 1932, and the style thereafter was toward smaller, less pricey boats. After World War II, lots of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and upkeeping their own small recreational craft. The number of boats and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
Looking for yacht transport Sunshine Coast ? Talk to Elite Yacht Services. We do great work at competitive prices.