As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting started 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 sent 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, reigned 1685-88), built other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a 100 bet. Yachting became fashionable for the wealthy and nobility, but after that time the habit did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, with great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by joining with other societies, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some ordered manner on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to sovereignty in 1820, it was named 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 association 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 site of British yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the rise of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great bids were held, and the society life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English held control. Sailing was for the most part for fun and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and set a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the 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 began the New York Yacht Club while aboard 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 second half of the 19th century. The style of bigger yachts was initially largely impacted by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a club headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with only a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what it had earlier done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats were individually manufactured, there arose a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was created, which resulted in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. Today, one of the fastest blossoming areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be done on an even basis with no handicapping at all. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was done largely for the royal and the wealthy, cost was no object, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller yachts happened 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 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 yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a popular 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
Following the decade 1840-50, during which steam started to emulate sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in pleasure boats. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance travel turned into a fond pastime of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to those powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. In particular within 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, 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 in World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many bigger craft were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. In the decade after that, large power-yacht building blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that time the best auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of large power yachts declined after 1932, and the trend thereafter was toward smaller, less costly craft. From World War II, lots of small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a internationally loved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and upkeeping their own small pleasure yachts. The amount of yachts and owners increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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