Tangalooma Villas

Yachting and Yacht Clubs

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As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a leisure 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 matches. English yachting originated 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 presented him with a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure 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), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 punt. Yachting became popular among the rich and royalty, but after that point 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 association, and had large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was first seen in some ordered 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 rose to the throne in 1820, it came to be 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 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 racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large bids were held, and the social life was lovely. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to over 350 tons.

In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English held power. Sailing was for the most part for fun and reached its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts followed the lines 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 sizeable yachts was originally largely impacted by the success of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a syndicate led 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 manufactured in a contemporary sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the use of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such study had earlier done for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had been individually built, there came a requirement for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was written, which resulted in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised 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 standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be held on an even playing field with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was done primarily for the royal and the affluent, cost was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller craft came in the second 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 voyage 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 craft. Later in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure yachts became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to emulate sail power in public boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in pleasure craft. Large power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance cruising became a favourite pastime of the wealthy. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably 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 at least 150. The Mayflower, bought 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 in World War II.

As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many large craft were using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. In the decade that followed, bigger power-yacht manufacture flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of larger power yachts lessened after 1932, and the trend thereafter was toward smaller, less costly craft. After World War II, many small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and maintaining their own small pleasure yachts. The popularity of yachts and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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