As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a leisure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), made other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting became fashionable for the wealthy and royalty, but after that point the habit did not last.

The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and had large naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other groups, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some stipulated method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it came to be called 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 group had been formed 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 perpetual location of British yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the ascension of George IV. Each member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great bids were held, and the club life was lovely. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to over 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 power. Sailing was largely for leisure and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht organisation, 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
The Early sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the later half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was initially largely impacted by the win 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.) found its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and built in today’s sense, with only a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats were individually manufactured, there was a desire for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was created, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In the present day, 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 dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for those boats can be held on an even basis 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.

So long as yachting belonged largely for the nobility and the rich, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and preference of smaller boats occurred in the later 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of small yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational yachts became more common, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were sailed 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 boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in personal vessels. Large power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance travel turned into a favourite pastime of the wealthy. 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. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the manufacture of large steam yachts. In particular within 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 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 gave active service during World War II.

As bigger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many large craft began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. During the decade following that, large power-yacht building flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the best auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of large power boats lessened after 1932, and the trend from then was in preference of smaller, less pricey craft. Following World War II, a lot of small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and upkeeping their own small recreational yachts. The amount of yachts and yachtsmen has increased steadily, not only in the traditional places on the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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