Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a leisure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English throne 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, sovereign 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 bet. Yachting rose as fashionable among the affluent and aristocracy, but after that time the habit did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, with large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some stipulated fashion on the Thames in 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 organisation had been formed 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 site of British yachting. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the rise of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high bets were held, and the society life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats grew 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 continued when the English had power. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club 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 through to the second half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was originally largely put upon by the victory of America, which was designed by George Steers for a club headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in the modern sense, with just a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the science of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such science had done earlier for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats were individually custom-built, there was a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which resulted in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly flourishing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing these boats can be held on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting belonged mostly for the royal and the affluent, expense was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The rise and preference of smaller craft happened in the later 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of less sizeable craft. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to emulate sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in leisure vessels. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance cruising was a favoured activity of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht archetype for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the design of large steam yachts. Notably of 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 at least 150. The Mayflower, commissioned by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and saw active service in World War II.
As bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many large craft began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced in World War I. From the decade following, bigger power-yacht creation blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that point the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of big power yachts lessened after 1932, and the fashion from then was in preference of smaller, less expensive craft. After World War II, lots of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and upkeeping their own small leisure craft. The number of boats and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional places on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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