Yachting and Yacht Clubs

As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a leisure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, borne from private games. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English monarchy 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 more 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 rose as fashionable among the affluent and nobility, but after that period the fashion did not last.

The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and had much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after conglomerating with other groups, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was first seen in some organized manner on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it came to be known as 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 association 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 yachting. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the rise of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great stakes were held, and the social life was wonderful. Ultimately 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 went on when the English gained control. Sailing was largely for leisure and reached its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was started 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 design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the later half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was originally heavily affected by the win of America, which was created 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. Early yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with only a model 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 application of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such study had done earlier for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats were individually built, there arose a requirement for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was created, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. In the present day, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be done on an even basis with no handicapping at all. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

As long as yachting was an activity primarily for the royal and the rich, cost was no issue, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller boats happened in the later 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) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of small boats. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational yachts became more popular, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, during which steam began to take the place of sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in pleasure yachts. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance cruising turned into a favourite pastime of the affluent. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion 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.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the manufacture of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned 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 gave active service during World War II.

As more sizeable and better quality internal-combustion engines were developed, many large craft were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. During the decade after, large power-yacht creation grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that point the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of bigger power yachts declined from 1932, and the fashion thereafter was for smaller, less expensive yachts. Following 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 widespread loved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and keeping their own small recreational craft. The popularity of boats and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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