Sailing Yacht Short History » Yachts & Boats

Sailing Yacht Short History - Skandia cowes week

Sailboats were used from times immemorial. Desire to sail across rivers, seas and oceans prompted man to create a boat. The first records of boats were found on clay tablets in Egypt, made more than 6000 years ago. Many historians consider that ancient Greeks began to investigate the Aegean sea more than 10,000 years ago. We known from the yachting history that Pharaohs in the Ancient Egypt loved to sale by Nile on the boats made of papyrus. It was customary to bury the mummified remains of Pharaoh together with a boat that it was easier for him to travel in the other world. Indian Maharajah also loved excursion cruises by waters of the Kerala river. Phoenicians were considered very skilful shipbuilders.

The word "yacht" is translated from Dutch as a «hunting ship» (jaghtschip). In 16th century merchants and navigators were attacked by pirates. For protection from marine robbers yachts were created. They were rapid and manoeuvre ships, intended for catching of pirates. Dutchmen presented a yacht to the English king Charles II. Yachts began to be used by royal persons for river sailings along the Thames since then.

We known from the yachting history that yachting as a sport became widely popular in Britain in the late Victorian period (1837-1901). Queen Victoria and her family had a fleet of sailing and steam yachts in her residence on the Isle of Wight. Cowes city on this island is still considered the motherland of yachting where the

famous sailing festival "Cowes Week" takes place in summer. It's also known as Skandia Cowes Week since 1994. It is the longest-running regular regatta in the world.

Initially yacht was called a light high-speed sailing boat. This definition began to mean in future any ship, different from a boat, set in motion by sail, engine or both, and used for entertaining sails and sport races.

Yachting history tells ua that yachting got the new level of popularity after the World War II. Yachts were mainly built from wooden boards till 50's of the past century, but then new materials began to be used, fiberglass, steel, aluminium and even ferrocement. This allowed to reduce the cost of yacht building.

Sailing yacht short history

All of us dreamed of voyages and adventures in childhood, were absorbed in novels about pirates. Corsairs, searching for adventures by furrowing seas and oceans on their schooners, always aroused envy and a little bit of regret that we were born so late. Today, when the matter concerns yacht voyages, eyes of some people begin to sparkle and they imagine trip full of adventures on a snow-white beauty with sails filled with wind. Others say with fear: yacht means rolling, sea sickness, closed space, tiring sailing, but both are wrong about voyages on yachts.

Complete silence and rest, and light motion under sails filled with wind on a background of the sea sunset, perhaps, it's what most people dream of since there childhood. If you are an admirer of novels about the seekers of piratic treasures and the fire of romanticism is burning in your soul, your sailing yacht is waiting for you!