As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a leisure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, borne from private games. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English monarchy in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure 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, reigned 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became classy with the affluent and nobility, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, with large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club persisted, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by joining with other groups, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some stipulated manner on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to the throne in 1820, it was then named 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 society had been initiated 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 continuing location of British yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great bids were held, and the society life was superlative. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English had power. Sailing was for the most part for pleasure and rose to its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
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 craft of large yachts was originally largely affected by the victory 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.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats were individually built, there came a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were made. Hence, a rating rule came into being, which resulted in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for such boats can be done on an even par with no handicapping required. A prime example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was done primarily for the nobility and the rich, cost was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller boats occurred in the latter 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of less sizeable boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational yachts became more common, 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
Following the decade 1840–50, when steam was set to emulate sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in personal craft. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance travel became a preferred occupation of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of more sizeable steam yachts. In particular of 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 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 more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many big craft started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed for World War I. During the decade following, big power-yacht building grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that time the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of large power boats fell away after 1932, and the trend after that was in preference of smaller, less expensive yachts. From World War II, lots of small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and upkeeping their own small leisure yachts. The number of yachts and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places on the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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