As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English monarchy 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), built additional 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 rose as classy with the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that time the trend did not last.

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

Yacht racing was seen in some stipulated fashion on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to sovereignty in 1820, it was known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing argument, 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 patronage made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the perpetual setting of British racing. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great stakes were held, and the club life was wonderful. Eventually 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 went on when the English held power. Sailing was largely for fun and reached its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the second half of the 19th century. The style of sizeable yachts was first largely impacted by the victory of America, which was created by George Steers for a group started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with just a model used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the science of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there was a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Hence, a rating rule was decreed, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be had on an even playing field with no handicapping required. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was an activity mostly for the aristocracy and the wealthy, expense was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The rise and popularity of smaller boats happened in the latter half of the 19th century in 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 made plain the seaworthiness of small boats. Later in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more common, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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
Following the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to take the place of sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in leisure yachts. Large power yachts were progressed to a high standard, and long-distance travel became a favoured pastime of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to yachts powered by the completely 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 a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of more sizeable 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 more than 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 bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger craft began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. During the decade following that, bigger power-yacht creation flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that point the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of larger power boats lessened from 1932, and the trend after that was toward smaller, less costly craft. From World War II, lots of small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a globally popular competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and keeping their own small recreational yachts. The popularity of boats and sailors has increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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