As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration 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 called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting became popular with the wealthy and nobility, but after that time the fashion did not last.

The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, with much naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when joining with other societies, it became 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 instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it was called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing dispute, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society 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 continuing location of British yacht racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the rise of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high stakes were held, and the social life was lovely. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to more than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English gained dominance. Sailing was for the most part for pleasure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and created a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while aboard 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 later half of the 19th century. The style of large yachts was first largely affected by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a association led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what such study had earlier done for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats were individually manufactured, there came a requirement for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was written, which resulted in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, one of the fastest flourishing 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 aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing those boats can be had on an even basis with no handicapping necessary. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

For the time that yachting belonged mostly for the aristocracy and the affluent, money was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The rise and preference of smaller yachts occurred 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of small yachts. Following this in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure boats became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
After 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 favoured increasingly in personal boats. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance cruising became a favourite activity of the affluent. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were only power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of more than 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 was used in active service during World War II.

As more sizeable and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many bigger craft began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered for World War I. From the decade following that, large power-yacht creation grew, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The building of large power boats fell away after 1932, and the fashion from then was toward smaller, less pricey yachts. From World War II, a lot of small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread popular sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and keeping their own small recreational craft. The amount of craft and yachtsmen is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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