Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of private games. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure 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, ruled 1685–88), ordered for additional 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 popular for the rich and aristocracy, but after that period the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and had great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after conglomerating with other societies, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some stipulated method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to the throne in 1820, it came to be named 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 group 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 location of British yachting. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bets were held, and the society life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English gained dominance. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the 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 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 until the second half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was initially heavily affected by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a group started 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 manufactured in the modern sense, with only a model being used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what it had done earlier for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats were individually custom-built, there was a desire for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was written, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised 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 manufactured to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be held on an even par with no handicapping at all. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting belonged mostly for the nobility and the wealthy, money was no issue, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller boats happened 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the hardiness of small boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular 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 began to emulate sail power in public boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in personal craft. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance sailing was a preferred occupation of the affluent. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then made way to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of large steam yachts. Conspicuous among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed by a crew of over 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 during World War II.
As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger boats began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. During the decade following that, bigger power-yacht building grew, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the best auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of bigger power yachts fell away in 1932, and the fashion thereafter was in preference of smaller, less costly craft. Following World War II, lots of small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and upkeeping their own small pleasure craft. The popularity of yachts and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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