Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English royalty 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, sovereign 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 punt. Yachting rose as fashionable for the rich and nobility, but after that period the habit did not last.
The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and held great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club went on, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other organisations, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing began in some organized fashion on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to the throne in 1820, it was known as 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 organisation 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 perpetual setting of British yachting. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great bets were held, and the society life was lovely. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English gained dominance. Sailing was largely for pleasure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the later half of the 19th century. The style of bigger yachts was first largely affected by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a association 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. Early yachts were not designed and crafted in the modern sense, with only a model used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what science had done earlier for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually manufactured, there arose a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the fastest growing 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 such boats can be had on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on board for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting belonged largely for the royal and the affluent, expense was no issue, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller boats occurred in the latter 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the value of smaller craft. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts 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 setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam was set to emulate sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in personal craft. Bigger power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance travel was a favourite occupation of the well off. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of bigger 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 operated by a crew of over 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 gave active service in World War II.
As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many bigger yachts were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, progressed during World War I. From the decade following, big power-yacht manufacture blossomed, reaching 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 big power yachts declined from 1932, and the fashion after that was in preference of smaller, less expensive craft. After World War II, lots of small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and upkeeping their own small leisure craft. The popularity of boats and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional places by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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