As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private games. 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 wager. Yachting was found to be classy with the rich and aristocracy, but after that time the fashion did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other societies, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated 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 ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it was then named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing dispute, 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 funding made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continued setting of British yacht racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great stakes were held, and the society life was lovely. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English took dominance. Sailing was largely for leisure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts took 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 initially largely affected 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.) had its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and crafted in today’s sense, with only a model for an outline. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had previously done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats were individually manufactured, there came a need for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule was created, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and amended in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly blossoming areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to standard dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for such boats can be held on an even basis with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged largely for the royal and the affluent, money was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller craft 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 journey around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the seaworthiness of less sizeable yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a preferred 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
Following the decade 1840–50, at which point steam was set to replace sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in pleasure boats. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance travel turned into a fond activity of the rich. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to those powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, 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 with gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise 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 operated by a crew of at least 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 was used in active service during World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many big boats were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. In the decade following that, big power-yacht creation grew, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of big power craft lessened from 1932, and the fashion from then was toward smaller, less costly boats. Following World War II, a lot of small naval boats were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and keeping their own small recreational yachts. The popularity of yachts and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional places on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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