As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a pleasure craft used first by royalty and then by the burghers in the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting originated 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 sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure 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), built 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 was found to be fashionable for the wealthy and nobility, but after that period the trend 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 association, and had large naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other societies, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was first seen 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 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 dispute, 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 association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for high stakes were held, and the club life was splendid. Ultimately 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 had dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and created a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts were within the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the later half of the 19th century. The style of large yachts was initially largely affected by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a association headed 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 built in a contemporary sense, with just a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the research of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what such study had already done for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats had to be individually built, there came a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which resulted in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. Today, one of the most rapidly blossoming areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to the same requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be held on an even par with no handicapping at all. A perfect 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 largely for the royal and the rich, expense was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller yachts happened 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 demonstrated the hardiness of less sizeable yachts. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure boats became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favoured 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
Post the decade 1840–50, in which steam was set to replace sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in leisure yachts. Large power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance travel turned into a preferred pastime of the wealthy. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to boats powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for many years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Conspicuous of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with 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 gave active service for World War II.

As more sizeable and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many big yachts started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, progressed during World War I. During the decade following, large power-yacht creation flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the biggest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of bigger power boats fell away after 1932, and the trend after that was for smaller, less expensive 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 globally beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and upkeeping their own small pleasure craft. The popularity of boats and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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