As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation 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 called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), made more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 wager. Yachting was found to be fashionable with the wealthy and royalty, but after that point the fashion did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and held great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when joining with other groups, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some ordered 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 came to monarchy in 1820, it was then known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht organisation had been formed 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 perpetual setting of British racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large bets were held, and the social life was wonderful. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English had power. 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 elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht club, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was first greatly affected by the victory of America, which was created 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. The first yachts were not designed and built in today’s sense, with just 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 use of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had earlier done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there was a need for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Hence, a rating rule was created, which resulted in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry 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 elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for such boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping at all. A perfect example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting belonged primarily for the nobility and the rich, cost was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller yachts 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) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of less sizeable yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular 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 was set to emulate sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed increasingly in leisure yachts. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance sailing turned into a preferred activity of the well off. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, 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 only power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of over 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 bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger craft began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced in World War I. From the decade following, bigger power-yacht manufacture flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the best auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of bigger power boats declined from 1932, and the trend from then was for smaller, less expensive boats. Following World War II, lots of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a widespread beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and upkeeping their own small recreational craft. The popularity of yachts and sailors has increased steadily, not only in the traditional places along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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