Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure 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), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting rose as classy among the wealthy and nobility, but after that time the fashion did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and held great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing boats 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 became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some ordered manner on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it was then named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association 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 setting of British yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for high bets were held, and the social life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English had dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts were within the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was initially largely impacted by the victory of America, which was designed by George Steers for a club led 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 manufactured in today’s sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the use of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had already done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually built, there arose a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, taken on 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 built to standard dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A prime example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was done primarily for the nobility and the rich, money was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller yachts happened in the second half of the 19th century in 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) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the hardiness of less sizeable boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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
Post the decade 1840–50, during which steam began to emulate sail power in public boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed increasingly in personal vessels. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance sailing turned into a preferred activity of the well off. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for many years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. In particular within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed 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 for World War II.
As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many large craft started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. From the decade after, bigger power-yacht manufacture blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of big power boats declined in 1932, and the trend thereafter was for smaller, less expensive yachts. After World War II, many small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and upkeeping their own small recreational craft. The number of boats and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations on the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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