Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private games. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English monarchy 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 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 bet. Yachting was found to be popular among the affluent and royalty, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and had much naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other societies, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some organized fashion on the Thames around 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 was then 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 organisation had been formed 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 society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bids were held, and the social 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 had control. Sailing was mostly for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled 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 continuing American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts took the design 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 sizeable yachts was initially greatly impacted 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.) found its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such science had previously done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there arose a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was created, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly growing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done primarily for the royal and the wealthy, money was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The rise and desire of smaller craft came in the later 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the seaworthiness of smaller craft. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were setting sail 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 employed increasingly in personal yachts. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high element, and long-distance sailing was a favourite occupation of the wealthy. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts with 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 among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed by a crew of more than 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 saw active service during World War II.
As bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many big boats began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced during World War I. During the decade after, bigger power-yacht building grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of bigger power yachts lessened in 1932, and the fashion thereafter was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. From World War II, lots of small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and maintaining their own small recreational boats. The number of boats and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional places by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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