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As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a leisure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting originated 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 presented him with 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, reigned 1685–88), ordered for more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be popular with the affluent and royalty, but after that point 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, and had large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other organisations, 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 rose to monarchy in 1820, it came to be named the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht organisation 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 yacht racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the rise of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for large bets were held, and the society life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English gained control. Sailing was largely for fun and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and elegance 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 instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the second half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was initially greatly affected by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a association headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with just 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 employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what science had previously done for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had to be individually custom-built, there came a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the most rapidly flourishing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to standard requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be done on an even playing field with no handicapping necessary. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

As long as yachting was an activity primarily for the royal and the affluent, cost was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller craft occurred in the second 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the seaworthiness of small yachts. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became more popular, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, when steam was set to take the place of sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in leisure boats. Large power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing was a fond pastime of the affluent. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then made way to yachts powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht archetype for several years. By the latter half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the design of large 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 more than 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 gave active service in World War II.

As larger and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many big boats started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. In the decade after, big power-yacht manufacture grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the biggest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of large power yachts declined in 1932, and the style after that was toward smaller, less pricey craft. After World War II, lots of small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and keeping their own small leisure yachts. The number of yachts and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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