Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a leisure craft used first by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam presented him with 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, reigned 1685–88), ordered for other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting became fashionable among the wealthy and nobility, but after that point the habit did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after conglomerating with other groups, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some organized fashion on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it came to be called 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 club had been started 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 continued site of British yacht racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for high bets were held, and the club life was superlative. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English took control. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and rose to its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts followed the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the latter half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was initially heavily put upon by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a syndicate started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and crafted in today’s sense, with only a model used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had earlier done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had to be individually built, there was a requirement for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the fastest blossoming areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was done primarily for the royal and the wealthy, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller boats came in the later 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 made plain the hardiness of small craft. Later in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational yachts became more popular, down to the dinghy, a preferred 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
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to emulate sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in leisure craft. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance cruising was a favourite activity of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for several years. By the later half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of bigger steam yachts. In particular within 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 over 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 saw active service in World War II.
As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger boats began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. In the decade after, large power-yacht manufacture blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of large power craft declined from 1932, and the fashion from then was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. From World War II, lots of small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a globally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and keeping their own small pleasure yachts. The amount of yachts and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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