As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a leisure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English monarchy in 1660, the city of Amsterdam presented him with 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, sovereign 1685–88), ordered for more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 wager. Yachting was found to be classy for the affluent and royalty, but after that time the habit did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, with large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when joining with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some ordered fashion on the Thames in 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 came to be known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht group had been formed 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 continuing setting of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bids were held, and the club life was wonderful. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased 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 gained dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts followed the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the second half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was originally greatly put upon by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a association headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with just a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the use of the research of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such science had previously done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there was a need for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the fastest 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 dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be done on an even keel with no handicapping at all. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting belonged primarily for the royal and the affluent, cost was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity 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 journey around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the seaworthiness of small yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became more common, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, in which steam was set to take the place of sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in leisure yachts. Bigger power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance cruising was a favourite pastime of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to boats powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only 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. In particular within 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 saw active service for World War II.
As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many big yachts started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed for World War I. During the decade after, big power-yacht building grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of big power craft lessened after 1932, and the fashion after that was toward smaller, less expensive boats. From World War II, many small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally popular activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and maintaining their own small pleasure yachts. The popularity of craft and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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