Tangalooma Villas

Yachting and Yacht Clubs

Filed Under Uncategorized

As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a pleasure craft used first by royalty and later 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 originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation 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 called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 1685–88), built other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be popular among 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 formed around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with much naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by conglomerating with other clubs, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was seen in some organized fashion on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to the throne in 1820, it was then called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht club had been started 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 site of British yachting. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for high bets were held, and the club life was splendid. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew 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 persisted when the English had control. Sailing was for the most part for fun and rose to its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht club, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the later half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was first greatly put upon by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a syndicate headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its win at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and crafted in the modern sense, with only a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the use of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such science had already done for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there arose a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, 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 built to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing such boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

For the time that yachting was an activity primarily for the nobility and the wealthy, money was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller boats 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 journey around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of less sizeable yachts. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, when steam began to take the place of sail power in market boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in pleasure boats. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance sailing was a favoured activity of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave rise to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

During the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. Notably among 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 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 was used in active service for World War II.

As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many big boats started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced in World War I. From the decade following, large power-yacht manufacture blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The building of large power yachts fell away from 1932, and the trend thereafter was toward smaller, less costly boats. From World War II, lots of small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and maintaining their own small recreational boats. The number of craft and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

Looking for boat transport Brisbane ? Talk to Elite Yacht Services. We do great work at competitive prices.