16 Jul 10 Yachting and Yacht Clubs
As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a leisure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts 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 throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam presented him with 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), built more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 wager. Yachting rose as classy with the rich and royalty, but after that period the trend did not last.
The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, with great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other organisations, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).
Yacht racing was seen in some ordered method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to sovereignty 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 group had been initiated 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 perpetual setting of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great stakes were held, and the club life was superlative. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to bigger than 350 tons.
In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English held power. Sailing was mostly for leisure and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht society, 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 first sailing yachts took the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was initially greatly put upon by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a association headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in a contemporary sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what science had previously done for hulls.
Because most of all sailboats had to be individually custom-built, there was a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was created, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the most rapidly 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 aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.
So long as yachting was an activity primarily for the aristocracy and the wealthy, expense was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The rise and popularity of smaller craft happened in the latter 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of less sizeable craft. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were setting sail 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 commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in personal vessels. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing became a fond occupation of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.
From the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of bigger 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 operated 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 was used in active service for World War II.
As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many big yachts started using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, was furthered in World War I. From the decade that followed, big power-yacht building flourished, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.
The construction of big power yachts lessened in 1932, and the trend after that was for smaller, less costly craft. Following World War II, many small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and maintaining their own small pleasure yachts. The amount of yachts and sailors has increased steadily, not only in the traditional places along the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.
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