As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting started 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 gave him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 1685–88), ordered for 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 became classy for the affluent and nobility, but after that period the trend did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and held much naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when merging with other groups, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some ordered 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 rose to the throne 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 argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association had been initiated 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 continuing location of British yacht racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large stakes were held, and the society life was lovely. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English took dominance. Sailing was for the most part for fun and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts were within the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was first largely put upon by the success of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a association started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with just a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what science had earlier done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually built, there was a requirement for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the fastest growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to single dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be done on an even basis with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was done largely for the nobility and the affluent, expense was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller craft 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the seaworthiness of smaller boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to replace sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in personal yachts. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance travel became a favoured activity of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous 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, purchased by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and gave active service for World War II.
As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many large craft began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed in World War I. During the decade after that, big power-yacht building grew, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of large power boats fell away after 1932, and the fashion from then was toward smaller, less costly craft. From World War II, many small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a internationally loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and maintaining their own small leisure boats. The number of boats and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations on the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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