Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and secondly by the burghers in the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. 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 sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure 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), ordered for additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be fashionable with the rich and nobility, but after that period the trend did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held much naval panoply and rigour. 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, by merging with other organisations, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some organized fashion on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to monarchy in 1820, it was then named 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 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, likewise at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bets were held, and the society life was wonderful. Ultimately 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 continued when the English had power. Sailing was largely for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was originally greatly put upon by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a syndicate led 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 a contemporary sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had previously done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually custom-built, there was a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to single dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing those boats can be had on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was an activity mostly for the nobility and the affluent, expense was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller craft occurred 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the value of smaller yachts. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure boats became more popular, down to the dinghy, a preferred 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 started to replace sail power in public boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in pleasure yachts. Large power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance sailing became a preferred pastime of the wealthy. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave rise to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for several years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. Conspicuous of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated 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 was used in active service for World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many big craft were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. In the decade following that, large power-yacht creation blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of big power boats fell away from 1932, and the trend after that was in preference of smaller, less pricey boats. After World War II, a lot of small naval boats were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and maintaining their own small leisure yachts. The popularity of craft and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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