As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been 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 was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English royalty 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 called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 1685–88), built other 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 became classy for the wealthy and nobility, but after that time the fashion did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed at 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 was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other clubs, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some organized fashion on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to monarchy in 1820, it was called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association had been initiated 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 continued location of British yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for high bets were held, and the social life was superlative. It came to be that the 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 persisted when the English held power. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and set a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht club, 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 style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was first largely impacted by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a club led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with merely a model used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the use of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had already done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had to be individually built, there arose a desire for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule was decreed, which resulted in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the fastest growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be held on an even keel with no handicapping at all. A great example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was done mostly for the aristocracy and the wealthy, money was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller boats happened in the second 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 made plain the value of less sizeable craft. Later in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more common, 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
After the decade 1840–50, when steam was set to take the place of sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in personal boats. Large power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance sailing turned into a favourite occupation of the affluent. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to those powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht fashion for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of large steam yachts. Conspicuous of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with 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 saw active service during World War II.
As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many large yachts were using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered for World War I. During the decade after, large power-yacht manufacture grew, reaching 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 manufacture of large power yachts lessened in 1932, and the style thereafter was for smaller, less costly craft. Following World War II, lots of small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and upkeeping their own small leisure yachts. The number of craft and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional locations on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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