Ninja Pirate Books

As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a leisure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English throne 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, reigned 1685–88), built additional 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 with the affluent and nobility, but after that point the habit did not last.

The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by conglomerating with other societies, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to monarchy in 1820, it was then named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society had been initiated 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 continuing setting of British yachting. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large bets were held, and the club life was wonderful. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to bigger than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English gained dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the second half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was originally heavily put upon by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a association led 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 today’s sense, with just a model used. 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 structure of sails and rigging what such study had already done for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats had to be individually custom-built, there arose a requirement for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were made. Hence, a rating rule was decreed, which resulted in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the most rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to standard specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping at all. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was done largely for the nobility and the rich, expense was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The rise and desire of smaller boats came in the second half of the 19th century in 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of less sizeable yachts. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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, 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 yachts. Large power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance travel became a favourite occupation of the well off. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. In particular within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of at least 150. The Mayflower, commissioned 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 during World War II.

As bigger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger boats started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced in World War I. In the decade following, bigger power-yacht building blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of larger power boats lessened from 1932, and the trend thereafter was toward smaller, less costly craft. Following World War II, a lot of small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and upkeeping their own small pleasure boats. The number of craft and yachtsmen is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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