Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became a leisure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English monarchy in 1660, the city of Amsterdam presented him with 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 additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 punt. Yachting became popular for the affluent and aristocracy, but after that point the fashion did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around 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 a fictional enemy. The club went on, 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 organized 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 rose to the throne in 1820, it was then 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 club had been started 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 continued site of British yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for high bets were held, and the society life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats grew 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 control. Sailing was mostly for fun and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts took the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the later half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was initially heavily affected by the success of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a syndicate 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 the modern sense, with only a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the use of the research of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what it had already done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats were individually manufactured, there came a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Hence, a rating rule was decreed, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in sailing 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 elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be done on an even basis with no handicapping required. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on board for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was an activity largely for the royal and the affluent, money was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller boats 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 journey around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of small yachts. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became more common, 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, in which steam was set to emulate sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in pleasure boats. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance cruising turned into a fond occupation of the affluent. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to yachts powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of large steam yachts. Notably within 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 at least 150. The Mayflower, purchased by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and saw active service for World War II.
As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger boats began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, was furthered for World War I. During the decade following, large power-yacht building blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of bigger power yachts lessened after 1932, and the trend thereafter was in preference of smaller, less costly craft. From World War II, a lot of small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and upkeeping their own small pleasure boats. The number of yachts and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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