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As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a leisure craft used initially by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, coming out of private games. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English monarchy in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave 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, ruled 1685–88), built other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be classy for the affluent and royalty, but after that time the fashion did not last.

The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with much naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when joining with other groups, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was first seen in some organized fashion on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to monarchy in 1820, it was then known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society had been started 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 location of British yachting. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bids were held, and the social life was superlative. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.

In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English held dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and reached its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and set a benchmark of luxury and sophistication 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 instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts followed the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The style of bigger yachts was first greatly impacted by the win of America, which was created by George Steers for a club headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with only a model used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the use of the research of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what it had previously done for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats had been individually built, there arose a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. In the present day, one of the fastest blossoming areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to single 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 had on an even par with no handicapping necessary. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

For the time that yachting belonged mostly for the royal and the rich, money was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller boats occurred in the latter 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of small craft. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft 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 traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, when steam began to replace sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in pleasure boats. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance travel was a fond occupation of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave rise to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of large steam yachts. In particular within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of at least 150. The Mayflower, commissioned 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 developed, many large craft began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. During the decade after that, large power-yacht creation blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of larger power yachts lessened in 1932, and the trend thereafter was for smaller, less expensive boats. After World War II, lots of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread popular activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and upkeeping their own small pleasure yachts. The popularity of craft and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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