As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam presented him with a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), built other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting became popular with the rich and aristocracy, but after that time the habit did not last.

The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and had large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after conglomerating with other societies, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some ordered method on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to the throne in 1820, it came to be known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht organisation had been initiated at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal sponsorship made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the perpetual location of British yachting. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great stakes were held, and the society life was splendid. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to more than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English gained control. Sailing was mostly for fun and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts followed the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the later half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was initially largely impacted by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a association headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with merely a model used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what it had done earlier for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats were individually manufactured, there arose a requirement for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the fastest blossoming areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be done on an even basis with no handicapping necessary. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was an activity mostly for the nobility and the wealthy, cost was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller yachts happened in the second half of the 19th century from the sailing of the Englishmen R.T. McMullen, a stockbroker, and E.F. Knight, a barrister and journalist. A voyage around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of smaller craft. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure yachts became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, at which point steam started to replace sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in pleasure craft. Bigger power yachts were progressed to a high standard, and long-distance travel turned into a favoured pastime of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to yachts powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the design of more sizeable steam yachts. In particular among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of at least 150. The Mayflower, bought by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and was used in active service in World War II.

As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large craft began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed in World War I. From the decade after that, large power-yacht creation flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the best auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of larger power craft lessened in 1932, and the style after that was for smaller, less expensive yachts. After World War II, a lot of small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a globally loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and keeping their own small leisure craft. The amount of boats and yachtsmen is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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