Tents and Marquees

As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), made more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting became popular for the wealthy and nobility, but after that period the habit did not last.

The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when joining with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some organized method on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to sovereignty in 1820, it was then 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 association 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 society 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 races for high bids were held, and the society life was wonderful. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.

In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English held power. Sailing was largely for leisure and reached its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed 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 followed the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the latter half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was initially largely affected by the victory of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a club started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and built in today’s sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such study had done earlier for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had been individually built, there came a need for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be held on an even keel with no handicapping at all. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was an activity largely for the aristocracy and the rich, money was no object, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The rise and preference of smaller boats happened in the latter half of the 19th century out of 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 seaworthiness of small boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became more common, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, when steam began to emulate sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in leisure craft. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance cruising became a favoured pastime of the wealthy. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. Notably among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned 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 saw active service during World War II.

As more sizeable and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger yachts began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed in World War I. From the decade following, bigger power-yacht manufacture grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of larger power boats fell away in 1932, and the trend thereafter was toward smaller, less expensive craft. Following World War II, a lot of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and upkeeping their own small pleasure yachts. The popularity of craft and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places along the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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