Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, borne from private games. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English royalty 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), built additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 wager. Yachting rose as fashionable with the rich and nobility, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht group 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 large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club went on, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other organisations, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began 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 rose to sovereignty in 1820, it was 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 group 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 continuing setting of British yachting. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high stakes were held, and the society life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English had power. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed 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 society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the second half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was first heavily put upon by the victory of America, which was designed by George Steers for a association led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and built in today’s sense, with just a model used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what it had already done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually custom-built, there was a need for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Thus, a rating rule was written, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to standard specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be done on an even basis with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting belonged primarily for the royal and the affluent, expense was no issue, and the size of boats developed, 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 made plain the value of smaller boats. Later in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, when steam started to emulate sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed increasingly in pleasure craft. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance sailing became a favourite activity of the well off. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of large steam yachts. In particular among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of at least 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 gave active service in World War II.
As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger yachts were using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered in World War I. During the decade after, bigger power-yacht creation flourished, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the biggest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of larger power boats declined in 1932, and the style thereafter was for smaller, less pricey boats. After World War II, lots of small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and upkeeping their own small pleasure yachts. The number of yachts and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional places along the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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