Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a pleasure craft used first by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of private challenges. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), ordered for more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 punt. Yachting became fashionable among the wealthy and royalty, but after that period the trend did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when merging with other groups, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated fashion 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 sovereignty in 1820, it was then known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht organisation 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 continuing setting of British yacht racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large bids were held, and the society life was lovely. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English held power. Sailing was largely for fun and rose to its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was originally largely affected by the success of America, which was designed by George Steers for a syndicate 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. Earlier yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with only a model used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had done earlier for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there was a desire for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the fastest blossoming areas in the field of sailing 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 keel with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was an activity largely for the aristocracy and the rich, expense was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller craft happened 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the seaworthiness of less sizeable boats. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft 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 traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to replace sail power in market boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in personal boats. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance travel was a preferred pastime of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of bigger steam yachts. Conspicuous 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 over 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 in World War II.
As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger craft began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. From the decade following, big power-yacht manufacture grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of bigger power yachts declined from 1932, and the trend thereafter was toward smaller, less pricey craft. From World War II, a lot of small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a globally popular activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and upkeeping their own small recreational craft. The amount of craft and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional places by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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