Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private challenges. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English monarchy 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), made more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 punt. Yachting became classy with the affluent and aristocracy, but after that point the trend did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, with large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other organisations, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some organized method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it was known as 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 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 setting of British racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high stakes were held, and the club life was wonderful. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats were raised 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 power. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts took the style 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 bigger yachts was first largely impacted by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a association headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the use of the science of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such science had earlier done for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there was a requirement for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Hence, a rating rule was written, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the most rapidly flourishing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard 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 at all. A prime example is the uniform 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 nobility and the wealthy, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller boats happened in the latter 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the seaworthiness of smaller boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a preferred 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, at which point steam started to emulate sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in pleasure boats. Large power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance sailing turned into a favoured pastime of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of 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.
During the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture of large steam yachts. Notably 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, 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 reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large craft started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed during World War I. During the decade following, large power-yacht manufacture blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of larger power boats declined in 1932, and the style from then was in preference of smaller, less pricey craft. Following World War II, lots of small naval craft were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a globally loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and keeping their own small leisure boats. The popularity of craft and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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