As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English monarchy in 1660, the city of Amsterdam presented him with a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure 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), made more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 wager. Yachting rose as popular with the rich and nobility, but after that period the trend did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and had great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some ordered method 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 then named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht club had been started 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 club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large bids were held, and the society life was lovely. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English took control. Sailing was mostly for fun and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while aboard 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 through the latter half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was first heavily affected by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a association 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. Early yachts were not designed and built in today’s sense, with just a model being used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what it had already done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually manufactured, there arose a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were built. Hence, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the most rapidly growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be held on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A great example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity primarily for the aristocracy and the wealthy, money was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller yachts came 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the hardiness of smaller yachts. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts became more common, down to the dinghy, a preferred 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 was set to take the place of sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in pleasure craft. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high element, and long-distance sailing became a favoured occupation of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to yachts powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. In particular of 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, commissioned 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 larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many big boats were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, progressed in World War I. In the decade that followed, large power-yacht creation grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of larger power yachts lessened from 1932, and the style after that was toward smaller, less costly yachts. After World War II, a lot of small naval boats were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and keeping their own small leisure yachts. The amount of boats and sailors has increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations along the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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