HMY ''Bezan'' (or ''Bezaan'') was a Royal Yacht of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The ''Bezan'' was a Dutch pleasure yacht built in 1630 and presented to Charles II by the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

. The ''Bezan'' was about 15 feet long with a single mast and carried a crew of two, and was the precursor of modern leisure yachts. A "bezaan" is Dutch for a

gaff rig Gaff rig is a sailing rig (configuration of sails, mast and stays) in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar (pole) called the ''gaff''. Because of the size and shap ...

ged type of sail. HMY ''Mary'', which was also presented by the Dutch East India Company to Charles the same year, had “square rigging”. Charles and his brother

James James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguati ...

raced their craft against each other. There was a race between the Dutch-built ''Bezan'' and the King’s yacht ''Jamie'' (named after James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth), which the former easily won.

References

* ''King Charles II'' (1979);

Antonia Fraser Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, (' Pakenham; born 27 August 1932) is a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She is the widow of the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Harold Pinter (1930–2008), and p ...

. .
Diary entry of Samuel Pepys
Royal Yachts of the Kingdom of England Former properties of the Dutch East India Company {{UK-mil-ship-stub