Recreational Sailing
Recreational Sailing – While work and survival came first in ancient times, we do have records of recreational sailing. In Egypt, for example, Cleopatra was carried down the Nile on a luxury vessel that could today be described only as a royal yacht.
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Recreational Sailing – While work and survival came first in ancient times, we do have records of recreational sailing. In Egypt, for example, Cleopatra was carried down the Nile on a luxury vessel that could today be described only as a royal yacht.
Norsemen
We know that the Norsemen built slender, swift craft in which to race each other, and that medieval vessels of Venice, at the northern tip of the Adriatic Sea, had embroidered sail quite impractical for working ships. There is also a record of a ship with the offputting name Rat of Wight built in Cowes in 1588, as a pleasure ship for Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Origin of the word yacht
The origin of the word yacht can be traced back to 1599, when a Dutch dictionary used the phrase jaght schip to mean a boat used for recreational racing. At that time in the Netherlands, all the right circumstances came together for the pastime to take hold: an economy that produced wealth and leisure time, waters sheltered from both weather and armed raiders, plus shipbuilding skills. Of all the diverse uses for boats in a country built on estuaries and inland waterways, criss-crossed by canals and dykes, waterborne recreation was a natural development.
