Yachting and Yacht Clubs

July 16th, 2010

As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht was a leisure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 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 bet. Yachting rose as classy among the affluent and nobility, but after that point the habit did not last.

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

Yacht racing was seen in some stipulated fashion 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 known as 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 group had been initiated at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal funding made the Solent - the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight - the continued location of British yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large bets were held, and the society life was superlative. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased 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 dominance. Sailing was largely for fun and reached its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts were within 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 heavily put upon by the victory of America, which was designed by George Steers for a group 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. Early yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the science of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such science had previously done for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had been individually built, there arose a need for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In the present day, one of the most rapidly blossoming areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be had on an even basis with no handicapping required. A great 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 largely for the nobility and the affluent, cost was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller yachts occurred 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 journey around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of smaller yachts. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts became more common, down to the dinghy, a preferred 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
After the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to take the place of sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in leisure boats. Large power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance travel became a fond occupation of the rich. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of bigger steam yachts. In particular of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of more than 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 larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger boats started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. During the decade after that, large power-yacht creation blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the biggest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of large power yachts lessened in 1932, and the trend from then was toward smaller, less costly yachts. After World War II, many small naval craft were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and upkeeping their own small pleasure boats. The popularity of yachts and sailors has increased steadily, not only in the traditional places on the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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