As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a leisure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private games. English yachting originated 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 presented him with a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure 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 back, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be fashionable with the wealthy and nobility, but after that period the trend did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and had much naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when joining with other groups, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated method on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to the throne in 1820, it was then called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht group had been formed at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal sponsorship made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continued site of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great stakes were held, and the club life was superlative. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English gained control. Sailing was largely for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht group, 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 took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the later half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was originally heavily impacted by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a syndicate led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and crafted in the modern sense, with merely a model used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had previously done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually built, there came a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which is found in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the most rapidly flourishing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created 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 held on an even par with no handicapping required. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done largely for the aristocracy and the wealthy, money was no issue, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller yachts occurred 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the seaworthiness of smaller yachts. Later in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a favourite training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to replace sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in personal boats. Bigger power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance travel turned into a preferred occupation of the wealthy. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave rise to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were exclusively power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. In particular of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned 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 in World War II.
As more sizeable and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many large boats started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered in World War I. From the decade after, big power-yacht building grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of big power yachts declined from 1932, and the trend from then was in preference of smaller, less pricey boats. Following World War II, a lot of small naval craft were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and keeping their own small recreational boats. The popularity of yachts and owners increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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