As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and then 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 originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English monarchy 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, reigned 1685–88), built more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be fashionable among the affluent and nobility, but after that period the habit did not last.
The first yacht club 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 great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club persisted, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by conglomerating with other groups, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some organized manner on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it was known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht club 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, again at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large stakes were held, and the society life was lovely. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English had dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht association, 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 first sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the second half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was first largely affected by the success of America, which was designed 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 victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the second 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 design of sails and rigging what such science had already done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there came a requirement for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In the present day, one of the fastest flourishing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing these boats can be had on an even keel with no handicapping at all. A perfect example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged primarily for the nobility and the rich, money was no issue, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller craft happened in the latter 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 journey 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 smaller boats. Later in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure 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 setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, in which steam was set to take the place of sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in personal boats. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing was a fond activity of the well off. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to boats powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for several years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of large steam yachts. Conspicuous among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of more than 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 saw active service for World War II.
As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger boats began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. During the decade after, bigger power-yacht building flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the best auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of big power yachts lessened after 1932, and the style from then was toward smaller, less costly yachts. Following World War II, many small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a internationally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and maintaining their own small leisure boats. The amount of yachts and yachtsmen is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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