As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a pleasure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, coming out of private games. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting rose as classy among the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that period 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 association, and had much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other groups, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some organized manner on the Thames in 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 came to be called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society 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 continued site of British racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the rise of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large stakes were held, and the society life was superlative. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew 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 persisted when the English had dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and rose to its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and set a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht club, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts took the style 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 large yachts was first largely impacted by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a club 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. The first yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had already done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats were individually built, there was a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was written, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly growing areas in 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 elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for such boats can be held on an even playing field with no handicapping at all. A perfect example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged largely for the nobility and the affluent, money was no object, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller craft 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 seaworthiness of smaller boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, during which steam began to emulate sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in leisure boats. Large power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance travel became a fond pastime of the affluent. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave rise to yachts powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht archetype for many years. By the later half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction 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 manned by a crew of over 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 gave active service for World War II.
As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were developed, many large craft started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced during World War I. In the decade that followed, big power-yacht creation blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of large power yachts lessened from 1932, and the fashion thereafter was for smaller, less expensive boats. Following World War II, many small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and maintaining their own small pleasure yachts. The popularity of yachts and owners increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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