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As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a leisure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers in the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting began with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure 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, reigned 1685–88), ordered for additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 wager. Yachting became popular among the rich and royalty, but after that point the fashion did not last.

The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, with great naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club persisted, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other groups, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was seen in some ordered manner on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to the throne 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 group 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 continuing site of British yacht racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the rise of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bets were held, and the social life was lovely. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to bigger than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English took control. Sailing was for the most part for fun and found 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 enduring American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the second half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was originally greatly impacted by the victory of America, which was created by George Steers for a club started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its success at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with only a model used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the study of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such science had previously done for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had been individually built, there was a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing those boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping at all. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was an activity largely for the royal and the rich, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller yachts came in the second 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 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 smaller boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure yachts 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 setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to take the place of sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in personal vessels. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high standard, and long-distance sailing was a favoured activity of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture 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 over 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 for World War II.

As bigger and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger yachts were using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered in World War I. From the decade after, large power-yacht manufacture blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the largest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of larger power boats lessened from 1932, and the fashion from then was toward smaller, less expensive craft. After World War II, many small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a widespread loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and upkeeping their own small recreational craft. The popularity of boats and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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