Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a leisure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private matches. 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 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, sovereign 1685–88), ordered for more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting rose as popular with the affluent and aristocracy, but after that time the habit did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, with much naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after conglomerating with other clubs, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some organized manner on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to monarchy in 1820, it was then called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing fight, 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 sponsorship made the Solent - the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight - the perpetual setting of British yachting. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the rise of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for high bids were held, and the club life was lovely. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English had control. Sailing was largely for leisure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club aboard 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 until the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was first greatly impacted by the victory of America, which was created by George Steers for a association headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with merely a model being used. 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 science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there arose a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was written, which resulted in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the most rapidly flourishing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to the same requirements 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 keel with no handicapping required. A great example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on board for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done primarily for the nobility and the wealthy, money was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller yachts occurred in the second 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) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the seaworthiness of smaller boats. Later in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure 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
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to emulate sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in pleasure yachts. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance travel became a fond occupation of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for several years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of bigger steam yachts. Conspicuous among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing 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 during World War II.
As bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large craft began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced in World War I. From the decade after that, big power-yacht creation grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of bigger power craft declined from 1932, and the style from then was in preference of smaller, less pricey craft. Following World War II, many small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally loved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually sailing and maintaining their own small recreational boats. The amount of boats and yachtsmen is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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