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 initially by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private challenges. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation 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 called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 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 Â£100 wager. Yachting was found to be popular for the wealthy and royalty, but after that time the trend did not last.

The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and had large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when joining with other clubs, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some organized manner on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to the throne in 1820, it was then named 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 group had been initiated 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 yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great stakes were held, and the club life was wonderful. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to more than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English had power. Sailing was for the most part for fun 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 persisting American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts followed the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the second half of the 19th century. The style of large yachts was originally heavily affected by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a syndicate headed 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. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in a contemporary sense, with only a model used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had earlier done for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there came a need for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule came into being, which is found in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and amended in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly flourishing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to the same requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be held on an even keel 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 belonged primarily for the nobility and the affluent, money was no issue, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller craft 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the value of small craft. Later in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favoured 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
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam was set to replace sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed increasingly in pleasure vessels. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance cruising was a preferred occupation of the wealthy. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were only power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of large steam yachts. Notably among 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 at least 150. The Mayflower, commissioned by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and gave active service during World War II.

As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many big craft started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, progressed during World War I. From the decade after, big power-yacht building flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of larger power boats declined from 1932, and the style thereafter was toward smaller, less pricey craft. Following World War II, lots of small naval vessels were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and keeping their own small pleasure boats. The amount of craft and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

Looking for yacht cleaning Sunshine Coast ? Talk to Elite Yacht Services. We do great work at competitive prices.

Sphere: Related Content