Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a leisure craft used first by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, coming out of private challenges. English yachting began 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 sent him 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, ruled 1685–88), built other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 wager. Yachting became classy among the affluent and royalty, but after that time the fashion did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and held large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when merging with other groups, 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 instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to sovereignty in 1820, it was called 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 formed 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 site of British yacht racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for high bids were held, and the club life was wonderful. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English held dominance. Sailing was largely for fun and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and set a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht club, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts followed the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the second half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was first greatly put upon by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a syndicate started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with just a model for an outline. 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 craft of sails and rigging what such science had already done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had to be individually built, there arose a desire for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Hence, a rating rule came into being, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the most rapidly flourishing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to single dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping at all. A prime example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting belonged primarily for the royal and the affluent, cost was no issue, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The rise and popularity of smaller boats came 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of smaller yachts. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to take the place of sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in personal yachts. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance travel was a preferred activity of the well off. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht fashion for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively 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. Notably within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of at least 150. The Mayflower, bought 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 during World War II.
As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger yachts began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. From the decade after that, big power-yacht building blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of larger power craft fell away after 1932, and the style after that was in preference of smaller, less costly craft. Following World War II, many small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and upkeeping their own small recreational boats. The amount of craft and yachtsmen has increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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