An overview of the history of yachting in its social, cultural,
political and economic contexts.
Shortlisted for the Maritime Foundation's Mountbatten Award 2018
This book, by a leading expert in the field, is the first major history
of yachting for over a quarter of a century. Setting developments within
political, social and economic changes, the book tells the story of
yachting from Elizabethan times to the present day: the first uses of
yachts, by monarchs, especially Charles II; yacht clubs and yacht racing
in the eighteenth century; the early years of the Royal Yacht Squadron
at Cowes and an analysis of the America Cup challenges; the pioneering
developments in Ireland and the exporting of yachting to the colonies
and trading outposts of the Empire; the expansion of yachting in
Victorian times; the Golden Age of Yachting in the years before the
First World War, when it was the sport of the crowned heads of Europe;
the invention of the dinghy and the keelboat classes and, after the
Second World War, the massive numbers of home-built dinghies; the
breaking of new boundaries by risk-taking single-handers from the
mid-1960s; the expansion of leisure sailing that came in the 1980s with
the use of moulded plastic yachts; and current trends and pressures
within the sport. Well-referenced yet highly readable, this book will be
of interest both to the scholar and the sailing enthusiast.
MIKE BENDER is an experienced yachtsman and qualified Ocean Yachtmaster,
with some forty thousand miles, mostly singlehanded, under the keel. He
is an Honorary Research Fellow in History at the University of Exeter.
