As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private matches. 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 presented him with 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, sovereign 1685–88), ordered for other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 wager. Yachting became popular for the wealthy and nobility, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had great naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other societies, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some organized 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 sovereignty in 1820, it was then known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society had been started 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 location of British yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the rise of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great stakes were held, and the society life was lovely. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English took dominance. Sailing was mostly for fun and rose to its epitome 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 persisting American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was started 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 were within the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the latter half of the 19th century. The style of bigger yachts was originally largely put upon by the victory 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.) found its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the use of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such study had already done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there arose a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was written, which resulted in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly flourishing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to single dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be had on an even par 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.
So long as yachting was an activity largely for the aristocracy and the rich, expense was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity 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 journey around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the value of small yachts. Later in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to replace sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in pleasure vessels. Large power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance travel turned into a preferred occupation of the well off. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. In particular within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of more than 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 during World War II.
As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many big boats were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered from World War I. In the decade following, big power-yacht manufacture grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of bigger power yachts fell away after 1932, and the fashion from then was for smaller, less costly craft. From World War II, a lot of small naval craft were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and maintaining their own small recreational yachts. The number of boats and owners increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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