As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a pleasure craft used first by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of 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 sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure 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), built other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be classy among the rich 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 had much naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other societies, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated method on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated 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 dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society had been formed 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 continued site of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the rise of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large stakes were held, and the social life was splendid. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English held control. Sailing was mostly for fun and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht group, 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
The first sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the second half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was first largely put upon by the success of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a association led 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. The first yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with only a model being 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 application of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had to be individually custom-built, there was a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In modern times, one of the fastest flourishing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to single dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting belonged primarily for the nobility and the wealthy, cost was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller yachts came 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the seaworthiness of less sizeable yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, in which steam was set to emulate sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in leisure boats. Large power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance sailing was a fond activity of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the latter half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the design of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous within 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 over 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 gave active service for World War II.
As larger and better quality internal-combustion engines were developed, many large yachts began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. In the decade following that, big power-yacht manufacture grew, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of big power craft lessened after 1932, and the fashion from then was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. After World War II, a lot of small naval vessels were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and keeping their own small pleasure yachts. The popularity of craft and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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