As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private games. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English monarchy 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), made more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting became popular among the affluent and nobility, but after that point the habit did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and held great naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by joining with other societies, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began 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 with a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht club 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 continuing setting of British yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great bids were held, and the society life was wonderful. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English gained dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts took the style 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 heavily impacted 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.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with just a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was known as 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 science had earlier done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually built, there came a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which resulted in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. Today, one of the fastest blossoming areas in the sailing industry 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 for such boats can be done on an even playing field with no handicapping at all. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was done mostly for the royal and the affluent, money was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The rise and desire of smaller craft came 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 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 smaller yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular 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
After the decade 1840–50, during which steam started to emulate sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in personal craft. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance travel turned into a preferred pastime of the well off. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing 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 was used in active service during World War II.
As more sizeable and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many large boats were using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. In the decade after that, big power-yacht manufacture blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of larger power yachts fell away in 1932, and the trend after that was for smaller, less costly boats. After World War II, a lot of small naval boats were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a globally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually sailing and upkeeping their own small leisure craft. The popularity of boats and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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