Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a leisure craft used first by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English throne 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 called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), ordered for other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be popular with the rich and nobility, but after that time the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and held much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other societies, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some organized manner on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it came to be known as 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 club 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 continuing location of British yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bets were held, and the club life was lovely. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English had dominance. 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 established a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts were within the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the second half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was initially heavily affected by the success of America, which was designed by George Steers for a group led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its success at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with just a model for an outline. 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 craft of sails and rigging what science had previously done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually custom-built, there came a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted 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 these boats can be done on an even par with no handicapping necessary. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was done largely for the nobility and the rich, cost was no issue, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The rise and popularity of smaller craft occurred in the second 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 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 value of smaller boats. Later 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 traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to emulate sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in personal yachts. Large power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance cruising became a fond occupation of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to those powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of more than 150. The Mayflower, purchased by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and gave active service for World War II.
As more sizeable and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many bigger craft started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered in World War I. From the decade after, big power-yacht manufacture grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of bigger power craft declined after 1932, and the fashion thereafter was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. Following World War II, lots of small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally popular activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and upkeeping their own small leisure boats. The amount of craft and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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