As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of private games. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave 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), ordered for more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became fashionable for the wealthy and royalty, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and held large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some organized 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 the throne in 1820, it was called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association had been started at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal patronage made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continuing setting of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the rise of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great stakes were held, and the club life was lovely. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English held power. Sailing was largely for fun and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and set a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts took the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the latter half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was initially largely put upon by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a syndicate started 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. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in the modern sense, with just 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 use of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such study had done earlier for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats were individually manufactured, there was a requirement for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and edited in 1919. Today, one of the fastest blossoming areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to single dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing those boats can be held on an even basis with no handicapping necessary. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done largely 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 boats occurred in the latter 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of less sizeable craft. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became more common, 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
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to take the place of sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed increasingly in personal craft. Large power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance sailing became a fond occupation of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to yachts powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the design 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 sailed 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 dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large craft began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed in World War I. In the decade that followed, large power-yacht creation flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of big power boats lessened in 1932, and the fashion from then was for smaller, less expensive 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 is a widespread popular activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and maintaining their own small recreational boats. The popularity of boats and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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