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As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht was a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and later by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 1685–88), made more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 wager. Yachting was found to be classy for the rich and nobility, but after that time the fashion did not last.

The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and held great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some ordered fashion on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it came to be called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht group had been formed 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 continued site of British yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large bids were held, and the society life was lovely. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to more than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English took dominance. Sailing was for the most part for fun and reached its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was originally greatly impacted by the win of America, which was drawn 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 crafted in today’s sense, with only a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what science had previously done for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats had to be individually built, there was a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Hence, a rating rule was decreed, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was an activity largely for the royal and the wealthy, expense was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller yachts occurred in the later half of the 19th century out of the sailing of the Englishmen R.T. McMullen, a stockbroker, and E.F. Knight, a barrister and journalist. A trip around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the seaworthiness of less sizeable boats. Later in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to replace sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed increasingly in pleasure vessels. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance cruising was a fond pastime of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the latter half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

During the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of large steam yachts. Notably among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed by a crew of over 150. The Mayflower, purchased 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 during World War II.

As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many big yachts were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced during World War I. From the decade after, big power-yacht building blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of larger power craft fell away from 1932, and the style thereafter was for smaller, less pricey boats. From World War II, lots of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually sailing and keeping their own small pleasure craft. The amount of craft and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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