STEAM YACHT.“HALCYON.”SANDY HOOK LIGHT-SHIP.“VOLUNTEER.”“MAYFLOWER.”
A SPIN OUT TO SEA.—WELL-KNOWN YACHTS ROUNDING THE SANDY HOOK LIGHT-SHIP.
(From the painting by J. O. Davidson, owned by F. A. Hammond, Esq.)
CHAPTER IX
YACHTING AND PLEASURE-BOATING
Yacht is a word derived from the Dutch language, which has given to the English so many of its sea-terms, meaning, originally, a fast boat, such as was built for chasing pirates and smugglers, and, later, a pleasure-boat. The latter meaning alone is now kept in view by the word, which is properly applied to anything designed and used for pleasure-sailing, whether moved by sails, steam, or electricity.
In Great Britain, where yachting, as we now understand it, arose, it was not until about 1650 that races between pleasure craft began to be sailed on the Thames and in the quiet waters about the Isle of Wight, while the first yacht-club was not formed until 1720 (at Cork, in Ireland). Even then, a century elapsed before yachting as a sport attracted much attention even among the British, famous for their love of the sea. In 1812 a “yacht-club” was founded at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight. It received a new impetus and became the “Royal Yacht-Club” in 1817, the Prince Regent having joined it, and in 1833 was again reorganized by King William III as the “Royal Yacht Squadron,” the designation it bears to-day. It carried on races, or regattas, as they soon came to be called (borrowing from the Italians a term descriptive of the old Venetian gondola races), but all sorts of cruising-boats were matched against one another, classified by a tonnage rule with no allowances for size or any of the systems by which contestants are now classified and equalized.