Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a leisure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of private challenges. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English throne 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), ordered for other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 wager. Yachting became classy with the wealthy and royalty, but after that point the habit did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started in 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,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when joining with other groups, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some stipulated method 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 sovereignty in 1820, it was named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association 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 perpetual site of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the rise of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high stakes were held, and the club life was superlative. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to over 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English held control. Sailing was for the most part for pleasure and rose to its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht society, 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
The Early sailing yachts were within the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the later half of the 19th century. The style of large yachts was initially largely impacted by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a syndicate led 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 manufactured in the modern sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the use of the science of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what science had previously done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there was a need for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was written, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the fastest growing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be held on an even basis with no handicapping required. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged mostly for the nobility and the wealthy, money was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller boats happened 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the hardiness of less sizeable boats. Later in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favoured 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
After the decade 1840–50, during which steam started to replace sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in leisure craft. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance cruising turned into a preferred occupation of the affluent. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to yachts powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht fashion for several years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. In particular among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of over 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 was used in active service in World War II.
As more sizeable and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many large yachts began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. During the decade after that, bigger power-yacht building blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the best auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of big power yachts fell away after 1932, and the fashion thereafter was for smaller, less pricey craft. After World War II, a lot of small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and upkeeping their own small leisure yachts. The popularity of yachts and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional places by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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