As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and secondly by the burghers in the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private challenges. English yachting began 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 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), built other 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 was found to be popular among the wealthy and nobility, but after that point the habit did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with much naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other clubs, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some organized method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to the throne in 1820, it came to be named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association had been initiated 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 continuing site of British racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high bids were held, and the club life was lovely. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew 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 took control. Sailing was largely for fun and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and set a minimum 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 formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts followed the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the later half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was originally greatly put upon by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a syndicate headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its success at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with just a model used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such study had already done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats were individually manufactured, there was a requirement for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be done on an even par with no handicapping required. 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 mostly for the aristocracy and the wealthy, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller boats happened in the second 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of small craft. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts became commonplace, 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
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam started to take the place of sail power in market boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in personal boats. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing turned into a favourite activity of the well off. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then made way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were only 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, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed by a crew of at least 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 was used in active service for World War II.
As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many bigger boats began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed in World War I. From the decade following, bigger power-yacht creation flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of large power boats declined after 1932, and the trend from then was for smaller, less pricey craft. From World War II, many small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and upkeeping their own small recreational yachts. The popularity of craft and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations on the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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