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As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht had been a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts 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 return 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 called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 1685–88), built more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting rose as fashionable among the rich and royalty, but after that period the trend did not last.

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

Yacht racing began in some organized fashion on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to the throne in 1820, it was then named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after 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 funding made the Solent - the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight - the continued location of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the rise of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large bets were held, and the social 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 continued when the English had dominance. Sailing was for the most part for pleasure and rose to its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum 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
Early sailing yachts took the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the later half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was initially greatly affected by the success of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a club started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the science of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what science had earlier done for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats were individually custom-built, there arose a need for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the most rapidly growing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for such boats can be had on an even basis with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

For the time that yachting belonged largely for the royal and the rich, cost was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The rise and desire of smaller yachts occurred in the later 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 trip around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the hardiness of small yachts. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favourite 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
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to emulate sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed increasingly in leisure craft. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance travel turned into a fond occupation of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

During the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the design of bigger steam yachts. In particular among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned by a crew of at least 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 saw active service during World War II.

As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large boats began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered from World War I. From the decade following, bigger power-yacht building blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that point the biggest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of bigger power yachts fell away after 1932, and the fashion thereafter was in preference of smaller, less expensive yachts. From World War II, a lot of small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a globally beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and maintaining their own small recreational craft. The number of craft and sailors has increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations on the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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