As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of private games. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 1685–88), made 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 became fashionable with the wealthy and royalty, but after that time the fashion 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 group, and had great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, largely 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 began in some organized method on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it came to be named 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 initiated 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, also at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for high bids were held, and the social life was wonderful. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English had control. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and reached its epitome 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 those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated 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 the second half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was originally greatly impacted by the win 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.) found its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the science of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such study had already done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats were individually built, there was a need for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Hence, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the most rapidly growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be done on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done primarily for the nobility and the rich, cost was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The rise and popularity of smaller craft came in the later 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 demonstrated the hardiness of small yachts. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favoured 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
Following the decade 1840–50, during which steam began to emulate sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in leisure boats. Large power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance travel became a favoured pastime of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. In particular of 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 at least 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 gave active service in World War II.
As bigger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many large craft were using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed for World War I. From the decade after that, large power-yacht creation flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of bigger power craft lessened in 1932, and the style thereafter was toward smaller, less costly yachts. Following World War II, a lot of small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a internationally popular competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and keeping their own small recreational boats. The number of yachts and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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