Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, borne from private games. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave 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 additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became popular for the affluent and royalty, but after that period 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 much naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other groups, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was first seen in some ordered manner on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it was named 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 club had been formed at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal patronage made the Solent - the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight - the continuing location of British yachting. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large stakes were held, and the social life was superlative. It came to be that the 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 went on when the English had control. Sailing was largely for leisure and reached its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.
Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts were within the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was first heavily affected by the win 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.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had done earlier for hulls.
Because nearly all sailboats were individually manufactured, there came a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was written, which resulted in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. In modern times, one of the fastest growing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be done on an even keel with no handicapping at all. A great example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
As long as yachting was done largely for the nobility and the wealthy, cost was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller craft happened in the second 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 trip around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the value of less sizeable boats. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favourite training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, when steam started to replace sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in personal craft. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance travel became a fond pastime of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, several 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 design of bigger steam yachts. In particular of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed 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 dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many large craft began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. In the decade following that, large power-yacht manufacture grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the biggest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The building of large power boats fell away from 1932, and the fashion from then was for smaller, less expensive boats. After World War II, a lot of small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and upkeeping their own small recreational craft. The number of boats and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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