Shadow Squadron

As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was 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 return to the English throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave him 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), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became classy with the wealthy and royalty, but after that point 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, and held great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing 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, by merging with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some ordered 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 called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society had been formed 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 continuing setting of British racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the rise of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great bids were held, and the social life was wonderful. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to more than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English had power. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard 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 instigated the New York Yacht Club while 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 through to the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was first heavily affected by the win of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a association started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with only a model for an outline. Not until the later 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 it had earlier done for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there came a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was created, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised 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 created to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing those boats can be held on an even basis with no handicapping required. A great example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

As long as yachting was an activity mostly for the aristocracy and the wealthy, expense was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller craft came in the second 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 trip around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the hardiness of less sizeable yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a popular 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, at which point steam started to emulate sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in pleasure boats. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance travel was a fond occupation of the wealthy. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then made way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with 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 majority were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of over 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 for World War II.

As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large yachts began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. During the decade following, bigger power-yacht manufacture grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of big power boats fell away after 1932, and the style from then was in preference of smaller, less expensive craft. Following World War II, lots of small naval boats were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread popular activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and maintaining their own small leisure craft. The amount of boats and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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