Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a leisure craft used first by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private matches. 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 sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), ordered for more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became classy for the affluent and nobility, but after that time the fashion did not last.
The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by joining with other clubs, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some ordered 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 ascended to the throne in 1820, it was called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht club 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 continuing setting of British yacht racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large bets were held, and the club life was superlative. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to more than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English took power. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and rose to its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the latter half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was initially largely put upon by the success of America, which was designed by George Steers for a association led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what science had earlier done for hulls.
Because almost all sailboats were individually built, there came a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was created, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the rapidly flourishing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard 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 had on an even keel with no handicapping at all. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was done mostly for the nobility and the affluent, expense was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller boats 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of less sizeable craft. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became more popular, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, when steam began to emulate sail power in market boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in pleasure yachts. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high standard, and long-distance sailing was a preferred activity of the rich. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.
In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the manufacture of more sizeable 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, 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 more sizeable and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many large yachts began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. In the decade that followed, bigger power-yacht building flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of large power craft declined after 1932, and the fashion thereafter was toward smaller, less pricey yachts. Following World War II, a lot of small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and keeping their own small leisure boats. The amount of yachts and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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