Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English monarchy 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, reigned 1685–88), made more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became popular for the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that time 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 organization, with much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other clubs, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen 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 rose to monarchy in 1820, it came to be known as 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 group had been formed 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 site of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great stakes were held, and the society life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English had power. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while on board 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 through the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was originally heavily put upon by the success of America, which was designed by George Steers for a association started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its win at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and built in today’s sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the use of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had earlier done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there came a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule was created, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to single requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing these boats can be held on an even basis with no handicapping required. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was an activity largely for the aristocracy and the rich, cost was no issue, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller craft happened in the later half of the 19th century from the sailing of the Englishmen R.T. McMullen, a stockbroker, and E.F. Knight, a barrister and journalist. A trip 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 small boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to replace sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in personal boats. Large power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance cruising turned into a favoured occupation of the affluent. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed 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 gave active service for World War II.
As more sizeable and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large yachts were using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. From the decade after, large power-yacht building flourished, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The manufacture of larger power boats fell away after 1932, and the style thereafter was toward smaller, less pricey yachts. From World War II, lots of small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a widespread beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and maintaining their own small pleasure craft. The number of yachts and owners increased steadily, not only in the traditional places along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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