Yachting and Yacht Clubs

As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of private games. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English throne 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 called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be classy for the rich and nobility, but after that time the fashion did not last.

The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after conglomerating with other societies, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was seen in some stipulated method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to monarchy in 1820, it was called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society had been initiated 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 club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great bets were held, and the club life was wonderful. Ultimately 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 took control. Sailing was largely for leisure and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the second half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was originally greatly impacted by the win 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.) found its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had already done for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats were individually manufactured, there was a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Thus, a rating rule was decreed, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the fastest flourishing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to single requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing such boats can be done on an even basis with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

For the time that yachting was an activity mostly for the aristocracy and the wealthy, money was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller yachts came in the later 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 trip 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 less sizeable boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more popular, 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, at which point steam was set to take the place of sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in leisure yachts. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance cruising was a preferred pastime of the wealthy. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.

During the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the design 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 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 gave active service for World War II.

As more sizeable and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many big yachts started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. During the decade following, big power-yacht creation blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the best 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 after that was toward smaller, less pricey yachts. Following World War II, a lot of small naval boats were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread loved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and maintaining their own small recreational craft. The amount of boats and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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