As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a leisure craft used initially 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, borne from private challenges. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure 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, ruled 1685–88), built additional 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 rose as classy with the affluent and royalty, but after that period the habit did not last.
The first yacht association 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 great naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when merging with other organisations, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some organized manner 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 sovereignty 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 formed 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 continuing setting of British racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the rise of George IV. Each member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large stakes were held, and the social life was wonderful. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English gained control. Sailing was for the most part for fun and rose to its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting 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
The first sailing yachts followed the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was initially greatly put upon by the win of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a group started 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. Earlier yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with merely a model for an outline. 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 research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had earlier done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually built, there was a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was created, which resulted in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the fastest growing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing such boats can be held on an even basis with no handicapping necessary. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting belonged primarily for the royal and the wealthy, money was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The rise and desire of smaller boats came 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 trip around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of small boats. Later 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, boats of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, when steam was set to emulate sail power in market boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in personal yachts. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance travel turned into a favourite activity of the affluent. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of bigger 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, bought by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and saw active service for World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many large craft began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. In the decade after that, bigger power-yacht building grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of bigger power boats fell away from 1932, and the fashion after that was toward smaller, less pricey boats. From World War II, lots of small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a widespread loved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and upkeeping their own small recreational yachts. The amount of craft and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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