As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became 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. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave him 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, sovereign 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be fashionable for the affluent and aristocracy, but after that point the trend did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had much naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club went on, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other organisations, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated fashion on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it was then called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht organisation had been initiated 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 location of British yachting. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great stakes were held, and the society life was lovely. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English gained dominance. Sailing was largely for pleasure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht club, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed 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 were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the second half of the 19th century. The style of large yachts was first greatly put upon by the victory 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.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and crafted in the modern sense, with only a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the use of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had done earlier for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats were individually built, there arose a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, 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 standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing such boats can be held on an even keel with no handicapping required. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity mostly for the royal and the affluent, money was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller yachts happened in the latter half of the 19th century in 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the seaworthiness of small craft. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure boats became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favourite training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, at which point steam started to replace sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in leisure craft. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high standard, and long-distance travel became a fond activity of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, many 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 boom in the construction of bigger steam yachts. Conspicuous within 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, purchased 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 more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many large boats began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered for World War I. During the decade that followed, big power-yacht creation flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of larger power craft declined after 1932, and the fashion after that was for smaller, less costly yachts. From World War II, a lot of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and keeping their own small pleasure yachts. The number of boats and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional places on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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