Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and later by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation 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, sovereign 1685–88), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became popular with the rich and nobility, but after that point the trend did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and had large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other organisations, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated fashion on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to the throne in 1820, it came to be named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht group had been formed 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 continued setting of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the rise of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great stakes were held, and the social life was lovely. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to bigger 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 dominance. Sailing was mostly for leisure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed 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 persisting American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the later half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was initially largely affected by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a syndicate 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. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with only a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such study had previously done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually manufactured, there arose a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were built. Thus, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the most rapidly blossoming areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be had on an even keel with no handicapping required. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done primarily for the royal and the affluent, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The rise and preference of smaller boats came 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 trip around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the seaworthiness of less sizeable yachts. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational yachts became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favourite training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to take the place of sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in leisure boats. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance travel was a favoured occupation of the affluent. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave rise to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for many years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of large steam yachts. Notably 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 at least 150. The Mayflower, bought 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 large craft were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered from World War I. In the decade after that, large power-yacht manufacture grew, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of large power craft fell away in 1932, and the style from then was toward smaller, less expensive yachts. Following World War II, lots of small naval vessels were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and maintaining their own small recreational yachts. The amount of boats and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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