Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a leisure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers in the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting started 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 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, ruled 1685–88), built additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 wager. Yachting became popular with the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that point the habit did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some ordered method on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it came to be known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing argument, 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 patronage made the Solent - the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight - the perpetual location of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high bets were held, and the social life was lovely. Ultimately 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 continued when the English held control. Sailing was for the most part for fun and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and sophistication 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 began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts followed 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 bigger yachts was first largely put upon by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a group started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in a contemporary sense, with just a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what science had previously done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there arose a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the fastest flourishing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be done on an even playing field with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged largely for the royal and the rich, money was no object, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller yachts came in the later 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of less sizeable craft. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became more popular, 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, at which point steam began to replace sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in pleasure boats. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance cruising turned into a fond pastime of the affluent. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the latter half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the design of bigger steam yachts. Conspicuous among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with 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 was used in active service during World War II.
As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large craft began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, was furthered in World War I. In the decade after, large power-yacht building grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of big power yachts lessened in 1932, and the style thereafter was toward smaller, less costly craft. After World War II, a lot of small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally loved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and keeping their own small recreational yachts. The amount of boats and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional places on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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