Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and then in 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 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 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 returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be popular with the affluent and aristocracy, but after that period the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, with much naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other organisations, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some stipulated method on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to monarchy in 1820, it was then named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing dispute, 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 continued site of British yacht racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great bids were held, and the club 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 persisted when the English held dominance. Sailing was mostly for leisure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and set a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts took the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the latter half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was originally largely put upon by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a syndicate led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with only a model for an outline. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was labeled 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 already done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually manufactured, there was a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the most rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing these boats can be done on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity largely for the nobility and the wealthy, expense was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller craft occurred in the latter 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 made plain the hardiness of smaller craft. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts became more popular, 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
Post the decade 1840–50, at which point steam was set to replace sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in pleasure yachts. Large power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance travel was a preferred activity of the rich. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to yachts powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were only power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of large 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 manned by a crew of more than 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 during World War II.
As larger and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many large yachts were using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. From the decade following, bigger power-yacht manufacture grew, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the best auxiliary yacht built 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 style thereafter was in preference of smaller, less costly boats. Following World War II, lots of small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally loved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and keeping their own small recreational boats. The popularity of craft and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional places along the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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