British Yachts & Yachtsmen – the text

A transcription of the 1906 book British Yachts and Yachtsmen, a frankly patrician history of yachting from the C17 up to the C20.

27 July 2018

The Eighteenth Century

We have now reached the eighteenth century, and, before giving some notes on the development of rigs which took place, it may be thought advisable to […]
27 July 2018

The Rise of Racing and Regattas

The earliest and most interesting of these was the Cork Water Club of 1720, but its quaint pageantry need not detain us here, as it will […]
27 July 2018

Early Yachtsmen

It is not easy at first sight to assign limits to the Restoration period of yachting, but it may perhaps be thought allowable to draw the […]
27 July 2018

Chapter 3 – Post-Restoration

Chapter 3 tracks the development of yachting as the direct influence of the Dutch faded following the Restoration. It continued to be a time of war […]
27 July 2018

The King’s pleasure fleet

The conclusion to which we are driven is that these yacht-like craft which escorted Charles to England were English in fact as in appearance. Naval history […]
27 July 2018

Maintenance costs

The question of the cost of these yachts is far from being unimportant, especially if we are right in supposing that the extravagance of the pastime […]
27 July 2018

Pepys’ accounts

It may be allowable at this point to digress for a while in order to consider the Jemmy yacht, which was the second of the Bezans. She was smaller […]
27 July 2018

Other accounts

Singularly few mentions of private yachts occur during this period. There is, indeed, the case of Jan Griffier, the artist; but Griffier, though long settled in […]
27 July 2018

Sir William Petty

In Charles II.’s reign there were two main lines along which development was sought. The first of these consisted in the effort to devise ships that […]