Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a pleasure 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, borne from private challenges. 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) 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, ruled 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 wager. Yachting was found to be popular among the wealthy and royalty, but after that period the fashion did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated manner on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it was then known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association had been started 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 yachting. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the accession of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large bids were held, and the club life was splendid. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats were raised 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 persisted when the English had control. Sailing was for the most part for pleasure and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled 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 organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while aboard 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 the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was initially greatly put upon by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a group headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in a contemporary sense, with only a model used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there arose a requirement for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In the present day, one of the rapidly flourishing 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 specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing these boats can be had on an even basis with no handicapping at all. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting belonged largely for the nobility and the affluent, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller craft came in the latter 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 value of smaller yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts 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 setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, when steam began to take the place of sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in personal vessels. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance sailing became a favoured activity of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of large steam yachts. In particular among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had 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 gave active service in World War II.
As bigger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many big yachts were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced during World War I. During the decade following that, big power-yacht manufacture flourished, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of large power boats fell away after 1932, and the trend after that was for smaller, less costly yachts. From World War II, lots of small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and keeping their own small leisure yachts. The number of boats and owners increased steadily, not only in the traditional places on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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