As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht was a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, borne from private games. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English throne 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), ordered for more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 wager. Yachting became classy for the wealthy and nobility, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, 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 seen in some stipulated method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to the throne in 1820, it came to be called 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 society had been started 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 perpetual location of British yachting. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high bids were held, and the society life was wonderful. 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 went on when the English gained dominance. Sailing was for the most part for fun and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the latter half of the 19th century. The style of bigger yachts was originally greatly affected by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a association led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the use of the study of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such science had already done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had been individually built, there was a desire for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the most rapidly blossoming areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to single dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be held on an even basis with no handicapping necessary. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity primarily for the royal and the wealthy, cost was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller boats happened 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 trip around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the seaworthiness of less sizeable yachts. 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 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
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam started to emulate sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed increasingly in pleasure vessels. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance sailing was a fond activity of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the design of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous among 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 was used in active service for World War II.
As more sizeable and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large yachts started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. In the decade after, big power-yacht creation flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of bigger power boats lessened from 1932, and the style after that was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. Following World War II, many small naval vessels were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually sailing and upkeeping their own small recreational boats. The amount of yachts and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional locations on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
Looking for yacht detailing Sunshine Coast ? Talk to Elite Yacht Services. We do great work at competitive prices.