Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a leisure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. 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 reaffirmation 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 then 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 the same way back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be popular for the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that time the fashion did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and had large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other groups, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated fashion on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to the throne in 1820, it was named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society 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 continuing location of British yacht racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the rise of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high bids were held, and the club life was lovely. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English took power. Sailing was largely for leisure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was initially largely affected by the victory 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 win at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and crafted in today’s sense, with just a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had previously done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats were individually manufactured, there came a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were built. Hence, a rating rule came into being, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly blossoming areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be done on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was done primarily for the aristocracy and the rich, expense was no object, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller yachts occurred 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 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 less sizeable boats. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure boats became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to replace sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in pleasure yachts. Large power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance travel turned into a favoured occupation of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. In particular of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated 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 for World War II.
As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many big boats began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. From the decade after that, bigger power-yacht manufacture flourished, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of big power boats fell away after 1932, and the fashion from then was in preference of smaller, less costly boats. After World War II, many small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and upkeeping their own small pleasure craft. The number of craft and yachtsmen is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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