Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a leisure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from 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 gave him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure 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 returning, on a £100 wager. Yachting rose as classy among the rich and nobility, but after that time the habit did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when merging with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some organized fashion on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to the throne in 1820, it was named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society had been initiated 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 location of British yachting. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bids were held, and the club life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English took power. Sailing was mostly for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the latter half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was initially largely put upon by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a syndicate headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with only a model used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such study had earlier done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats had been individually built, there came a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Hence, a rating rule was decreed, which resulted in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for such boats can be done on an even keel with no handicapping at all. A perfect example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
For the time that yachting was an activity largely for the aristocracy and the wealthy, expense was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller yachts came in the second 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 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 less sizeable boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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
Post the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to take the place of sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in leisure yachts. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance cruising turned into a fond occupation of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave rise to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the latter half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were only power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous within 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 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 during World War II.
As larger and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many big boats started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. In the decade after that, big power-yacht creation blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of big power boats declined after 1932, and the fashion from then was toward smaller, less pricey boats. After World War II, many small naval vessels were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a globally popular competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually sailing and upkeeping their own small pleasure craft. The amount of yachts and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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