As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht was a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting started 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 presented him with 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), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting became classy with the affluent and aristocracy, 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, with large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other societies, it became 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 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 association had been formed 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 continued location of British yachting. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for high bets were held, and the social life was superlative. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English held dominance. Sailing was mostly for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht club, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was initially greatly impacted by the win 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.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the use of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had done earlier for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats were individually custom-built, there arose a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was written, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended 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 aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting belonged primarily for the royal and the rich, expense was no object, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller craft came 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of small craft. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to take the place of sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in pleasure vessels. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance sailing was a favoured pastime of the well off. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave rise to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the manufacture of more sizeable 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 operated by a crew of more than 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 more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many big yachts began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. In the decade after that, bigger power-yacht manufacture flourished, hitting 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 big power craft lessened after 1932, and the fashion from then was in preference of smaller, less costly boats. Following World War II, a lot of small naval boats were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally popular competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and upkeeping their own small leisure yachts. The popularity of yachts and yachtsmen is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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