As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of private challenges. 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) pleasure 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, ruled 1685–88), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be fashionable among the affluent and nobility, but after that time the habit 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 organization, and had great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club went on, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after conglomerating with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some ordered method on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to monarchy in 1820, it was then called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association had been started 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 perpetual location of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great stakes 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 was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English took power. Sailing was largely for fun and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while aboard 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 through the second half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was first heavily impacted by the victory of America, which was drawn 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 crafted in a contemporary sense, with just a model used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the use of the study of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what it had done earlier for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had to be individually built, there came a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Hence, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In the present day, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be held on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged primarily for the aristocracy and the rich, money was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller yachts 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 trip around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the value of small boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational yachts became more common, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to replace sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in personal yachts. Large power yachts were progressed to a high element, and long-distance sailing was a favourite activity of the well off. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. In particular of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed by a crew of at least 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 gave active service for World War II.
As more sizeable and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many big boats started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. During the decade after, large power-yacht building blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of large power yachts fell away after 1932, and the trend after that was toward smaller, less costly yachts. From World War II, many small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and maintaining their own small recreational craft. The number of yachts and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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