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As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a pleasure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing 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 return to the English royalty 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), made more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be popular for the affluent and aristocracy, but after that period the fashion did not last.

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

Yacht racing began in some organized manner on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it came to be called 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 club 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 perpetual setting of British racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large bids were held, and the social life was superlative. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to over 350 tons.

In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English gained control. Sailing was largely for pleasure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, 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 through to the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was initially largely 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.) found its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and crafted in today’s sense, with merely a model used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such study had previously done for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats had been individually built, there was a desire for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were built. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to standard dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for such boats can be held on an even par with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

As long as yachting was an activity primarily for the royal and the affluent, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller yachts 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 journey around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the seaworthiness of smaller boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts became more popular, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to replace sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in leisure yachts. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance sailing was a favoured activity of the affluent. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to yachts powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht archetype for several years. By the later half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of large steam yachts. In particular within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed 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 gave active service during World War II.

As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many big craft started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced in World War I. In the decade after that, large power-yacht creation flourished, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that period the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of bigger power boats lessened in 1932, and the trend after that was for smaller, less expensive yachts. Following 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 internationally loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and keeping their own small leisure yachts. The popularity of yachts and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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