Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English royalty 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 wager. Yachting was found to be classy with the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other groups, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some ordered method on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to monarchy in 1820, it came to be called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following 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 continued site of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great 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 began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English held power. Sailing was mostly for fun and reached its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts took the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the later half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was originally heavily impacted by the success of America, which was designed by George Steers for a club headed 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. Early yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with merely a model used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such study had previously done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there came a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was written, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly flourishing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on board for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was an activity primarily for the nobility and the wealthy, expense was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller yachts happened 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 trip around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the seaworthiness of small craft. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became more popular, 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
Post the decade 1840–50, during which steam began to emulate sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in pleasure yachts. Large power yachts were progressed to a high element, and long-distance cruising was a fond pastime of the well off. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to yachts powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably of 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, purchased 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 more sizeable and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large yachts started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered from World War I. During the decade that followed, large power-yacht creation flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of large power boats fell away in 1932, and the fashion from then was in preference of smaller, less costly boats. Following World War II, many small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally popular activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and keeping their own small pleasure boats. The popularity of boats and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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