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 initially by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private games. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam presented him with a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be classy among the rich and aristocracy, but after that period the trend 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 group, and held much naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other societies, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some ordered method 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 the throne in 1820, it was called 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 organisation had been started 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 setting of British yacht racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great bets were held, and the social life was superlative. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English held dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and rose to its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and created a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht club, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the later half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was first heavily put upon by the victory of America, which was designed by George Steers for a group started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and built in today’s sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had already done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had to be individually built, there arose a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly growing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these 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.
As long as yachting was done mostly for the nobility and the rich, money was no object, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller craft occurred in the second half of the 19th century out of 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 seaworthiness of smaller craft. Later in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure 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 sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, at which point steam started to emulate sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in leisure boats. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance cruising turned into a preferred activity of the rich. 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 well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of large steam yachts. Conspicuous 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, 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 in World War II.
As more sizeable and better quality internal-combustion engines were developed, many big yachts began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. From the decade after, big power-yacht manufacture grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of large power boats lessened in 1932, and the style after that was for smaller, less pricey craft. Following World War II, many small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and upkeeping their own small recreational yachts. The number of craft and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional places along the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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