Sailing & Yachts

For most of history, a sailboat was a working tool. Yachting, sailing purely for pleasure and sport, only became a big business in the 19th century, and the photographs here catch it at its peak.

The race that started it all for Americans was in 1851, when a schooner named America crossed the Atlantic and beat a fleet of British yachts around the Isle of Wight. The silver trophy she won was renamed for her, and the America's Cup became the most famous prize in sailing. American yachts held it for well over a century. Every challenge brought newspaper coverage and crowds of spectator boats, and the photographers went out with them.

Yacht photography was a hard specialty. The boats were moving, the deck under the photographer was moving, and the light on the water was tricky. The best of these pictures show a racing yacht heeled over under a huge spread of canvas, with the crew lined along the rail. Many were made by the Detroit Publishing Company and similar firms, which sold views of famous yachts the way they sold views of famous buildings.

Whaling belongs to an older and rougher world. New Bedford and Nantucket sent ships around the globe for voyages that could last 3 or 4 years, hunting whales for the oil that lit American lamps. The trade peaked in the mid-1800s and declined after petroleum was found in Pennsylvania in 1859. The whaleship Charles W. Morgan, launched in 1841, still survives at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, the last wooden whaler of her kind.

Look at the rigging. A whaler, a racing schooner and a small catboat each carried sail in a different way, and the shape of the sails is often the fastest clue to what kind of boat you are seeing and when the picture was made.