As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a leisure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), built more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 bet. Yachting rose as fashionable among the wealthy and royalty, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other groups, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some organized 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 came to sovereignty in 1820, it was known as 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 continued setting of British yacht racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension 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. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English had control. Sailing was largely for leisure and rose to its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum 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 started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early 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 craft of bigger yachts was first largely put upon by the success 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 success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in the modern sense, with only a model used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the use of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had already done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had been individually built, there arose a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were built. Hence, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited 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 standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing those boats can be held on an even keel with no handicapping required. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting belonged largely for the nobility and the wealthy, expense was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller yachts occurred in the second 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of less sizeable craft. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to take the place of sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in personal vessels. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance cruising was a favoured activity of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of large steam yachts. Notably within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated 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 gave active service during World War II.
As larger and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many bigger yachts started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. During the decade following, bigger power-yacht manufacture flourished, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that point the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of larger power yachts lessened after 1932, and the style after that was in preference of smaller, less costly craft. Following World War II, a lot of small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and maintaining their own small leisure boats. The popularity of craft and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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