Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, coming out of private games. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure 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, ruled 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 punt. Yachting rose as fashionable among the affluent and nobility, but after that point the trend did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and had much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race 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 merging with other groups, it became 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 instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it was 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 club 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 site of British yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large bets were held, and the club life was wonderful. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English held power. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht group, 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 Early sailing yachts took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was initially greatly impacted 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 success at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in a contemporary sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what it had previously done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there was a requirement for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, accepted 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 created to standard 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 held on an even basis with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity largely for the royal and the rich, money was no issue, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The rise and preference of smaller yachts came in the later 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 trip around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the seaworthiness of small boats. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts 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 started to emulate sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in personal boats. Bigger power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing turned into a fond pastime of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then made way to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht archetype for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed 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 in World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large yachts were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. From the decade following, bigger power-yacht manufacture blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of larger power yachts fell away from 1932, and the fashion thereafter was for smaller, less pricey boats. From World War II, many small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and upkeeping their own small leisure boats. The amount of yachts and owners increased steadily, not only in the traditional places by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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