Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as 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 sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), built additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became classy among the wealthy and nobility, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and had large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by conglomerating with other groups, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some organized method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended 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 argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht organisation had been formed 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 setting of British racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great stakes were held, and the social life was superlative. 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 continued when the English had dominance. Sailing was largely for pleasure and rose to its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was originally greatly impacted by the success of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a syndicate started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had done earlier for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually built, there was a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Hence, a rating rule was written, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the most 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 single dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be held on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was done primarily for the aristocracy and the affluent, cost was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller boats happened in the later half of the 19th century in 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 made plain the hardiness of smaller boats. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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, at which point steam started to replace sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in personal yachts. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance cruising turned into a favoured occupation of the affluent. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for several years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably among 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 over 150. The Mayflower, bought by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and saw active service during World War II.
As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many big yachts were using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. During the decade following, big power-yacht manufacture flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that time the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of larger power craft fell away from 1932, and the trend from then was toward smaller, less pricey yachts. After World War II, many small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a internationally popular competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and upkeeping their own small pleasure yachts. The number of yachts and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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