As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became a leisure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private games. English yachting originated 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) 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, ruled 1685–88), made 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 rose as fashionable among the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that period the fashion did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and held large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other groups, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some ordered 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 sovereignty in 1820, it was then known as 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 society 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 perpetual location of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great bids were held, and the social life was wonderful. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English held control. Sailing was largely for leisure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and set a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was initially heavily impacted by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a group led 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 built in the modern sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had done earlier for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had to be individually custom-built, there came a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was created, which resulted in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the fastest growing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be had on an even basis with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged mostly for the nobility and the rich, expense was no issue, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller yachts occurred in the second 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the hardiness of smaller boats. Following this 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, craft of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, when steam was set to replace sail power in market boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in personal yachts. Large power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing turned into a fond occupation of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave rise to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction 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, 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 in World War II.
As larger and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many big yachts began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced during World War I. During the decade that followed, bigger power-yacht creation flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the best auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of big power boats fell away in 1932, and the trend thereafter was toward smaller, less costly craft. From World War II, a lot of small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and keeping their own small recreational yachts. The popularity of yachts and yachtsmen has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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