Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a leisure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of private challenges. English yachting originated 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 presented him with a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be fashionable with the wealthy and nobility, but after that period the habit did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and had large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other clubs, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some organized manner on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it was then 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 club 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 perpetual site of British yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for high bids were held, and the club life was superlative. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English gained control. Sailing was largely for pleasure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts were within 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 style of bigger yachts was initially greatly put upon by the success of America, which was created 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 win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with only a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such study had earlier done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had to be individually custom-built, there arose a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the fastest growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged mostly for the nobility and the rich, money was no issue, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller boats occurred 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) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the hardiness of small boats. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to emulate sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in pleasure craft. Large power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance cruising became a fond pastime of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably 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 more than 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 during World War II.
As bigger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger craft started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced during World War I. In the decade following that, large power-yacht manufacture grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of big power yachts fell away from 1932, and the trend thereafter was toward smaller, less expensive craft. After World War II, many small naval boats were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and upkeeping their own small leisure craft. The amount of yachts and yachtsmen is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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