Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of private games. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English monarchy in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure 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, reigned 1685–88), built additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be classy among the rich and nobility, but after that time the fashion did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when joining with other organisations, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some stipulated fashion on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to the throne in 1820, it was called 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 association had been started 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 location of British yacht racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great bets were held, and the social life was wonderful. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English took control. Sailing was largely for leisure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The style of large yachts was originally heavily affected by the success of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a syndicate headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with just a model 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 employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such study had done earlier for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually custom-built, there came a requirement for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly flourishing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to standard dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be done on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting belonged largely for the royal and the affluent, expense was no object, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller boats occurred in the latter half of the 19th century from 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 made plain the value of less sizeable yachts. Later in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more common, down to the dinghy, a preferred 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 began to replace sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in leisure yachts. Large power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance travel was a preferred activity of the wealthy. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to yachts powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were solely power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the manufacture of bigger 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 manned 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 in World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many big boats started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered in World War I. In the decade after, bigger power-yacht manufacture grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that point the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of large power craft lessened in 1932, and the fashion after that was in preference of smaller, less pricey craft. Following World War II, many small naval boats were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a globally popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and keeping their own small leisure craft. The popularity of craft and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional places on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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