As the Dutch rose to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the first yacht became a leisure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private games. English yachting started 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) leisure 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, sovereign 1685–88), ordered for additional 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 with the affluent and nobility, but after that point the habit did not last.

The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, and had much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after conglomerating with other clubs, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some stipulated fashion on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded 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 argument, 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 setting of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bets were held, and the social life was wonderful. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to bigger than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English held power. Sailing was largely for leisure and reached its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts took the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the later half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was originally heavily put upon by the victory of America, which was designed by George Steers for a club started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in a contemporary sense, with just a model 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 use of the research of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had done earlier for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there was a requirement for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were built. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the most rapidly flourishing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to the same dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for such boats can be had on an even keel with no handicapping at all. A great example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

As long as yachting was done primarily for the aristocracy and the wealthy, expense was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller craft 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) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of smaller boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, in which steam started to take the place of sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in leisure vessels. Large power yachts were progressed to a high standard, and long-distance travel became a favourite pastime of the rich. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the design of large steam yachts. In particular within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed 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 gave active service in World War II.

As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were created, many large boats began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed in World War I. In the decade following, large power-yacht creation blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that time the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of large power yachts lessened after 1932, and the fashion from then was in preference of smaller, less expensive craft. From World War II, a lot of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and keeping their own small pleasure yachts. The number of boats and yachtsmen has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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