As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht was a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, borne from private games. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam presented him with 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 punt. Yachting was found to be popular for the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that time 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 gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated method on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to sovereignty in 1820, it came to be known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht organisation had been formed 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 continuing location of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for high stakes were held, and the social life was wonderful. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased 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 held control. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and rose to its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard 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 instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts took the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The style of bigger yachts was initially largely impacted by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a group headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in today’s sense, with just a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the science of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had already done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had been individually built, there arose a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was written, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the most rapidly growing 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 such boats can be done on an even keel with no handicapping required. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was an activity 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 craft 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of smaller craft. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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
Following the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to replace sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in pleasure craft. Large power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance travel turned into a favoured pastime of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of bigger steam yachts. Notably within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated 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 was used in active service during World War II.
As larger and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many big yachts were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered in World War I. In the decade following, big power-yacht creation blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of big power yachts declined in 1932, and the fashion after that was toward smaller, less pricey yachts. Following World War II, a lot of small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and keeping their own small pleasure yachts. The number of craft and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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