As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht was a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht 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 return to the English royalty 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), built other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be fashionable with the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that point the trend did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and had large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by joining with other groups, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated 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 came to the throne in 1820, it came to be known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing fight, 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 location of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. Every 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. 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 persisted when the English held control. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and reached its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established 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 formed 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 design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the later half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was originally greatly affected by the win of America, which was drawn 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. Early yachts were not designed and crafted in today’s sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such study had already done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually built, there was a need for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be done on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was done mostly for the aristocracy and the rich, cost was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller boats occurred in the second 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 journey around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the seaworthiness of smaller yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became more common, down to the dinghy, a favoured 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
Post the decade 1840–50, when steam started to emulate sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in pleasure vessels. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance cruising became a favoured occupation of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht archetype for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the design of more sizeable 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, commissioned by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and gave active service during World War II.
As bigger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger yachts started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered for World War I. From the decade following, large power-yacht manufacture blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that time the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of large power craft lessened after 1932, and the style thereafter was for smaller, less costly yachts. From World War II, many small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a globally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and keeping their own small recreational yachts. The popularity of craft and sailors has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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