Yachting and Yacht Clubs

As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became 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 yachts was incidental, borne from private challenges. English yachting originated 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 presented him with 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), built additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting rose as classy for the rich and nobility, but after that time the trend did not last.

The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and held much naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was seen in some stipulated manner on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to the throne in 1820, it was then called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht organisation had been initiated 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 location of British racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the rise of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for high stakes were held, and the society life was superlative. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to bigger than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English held dominance. Sailing was mostly for leisure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum 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 founded the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
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 design of large yachts was first heavily put upon by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a group led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and manufactured in a contemporary sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had done earlier for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had to be individually built, there was a requirement for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Hence, a rating rule was written, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and edited in 1919. Today, one of the fastest blossoming areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to standard dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be done on an even playing field with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was an activity primarily for the nobility and the wealthy, money was no problem, 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 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of small craft. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure boats became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, during which steam started to emulate sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in leisure craft. Large power yachts were progressed to a high standard, and long-distance sailing was a favoured activity of the affluent. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to yachts powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the design of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed by a crew of more than 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 saw active service for World War II.

As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many large yachts were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. From the decade following that, big power-yacht creation blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that time the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The building of larger power yachts lessened after 1932, and the fashion from then was in preference of smaller, less costly boats. From World War II, many small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually sailing and maintaining their own small recreational boats. The amount of yachts and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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