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As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht had been a pleasure craft used first by royalty and later by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, borne from private games. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English monarchy 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), built other yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting rose as popular with the rich and royalty, but after that time the habit did not last.

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

Yacht racing was seen in some organized manner 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 named 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 club had been initiated 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 yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the rise of George IV. Every member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great bets were held, and the club life was wonderful. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to bigger than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English gained dominance. Sailing was largely for leisure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club 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 through to the later half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was originally heavily impacted by the win of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a syndicate started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what science had done earlier for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats were individually built, there arose a requirement for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly growing areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be held on an even par with no handicapping at all. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

For the time that yachting was done mostly for the aristocracy and the wealthy, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller boats came in the second half of the 19th century out of 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 proved the hardiness of smaller boats. Following this in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure yachts became more popular, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, when steam started to emulate sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in pleasure yachts. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing was a favourite occupation of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.

During the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the construction of large steam yachts. Conspicuous 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, 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 during World War II.

As larger and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many big boats began using them for power. The establishment of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed during World War I. From the decade that followed, large power-yacht building flourished, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of big power boats declined after 1932, and the fashion thereafter was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. From World War II, a lot of small naval boats were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and upkeeping their own small pleasure boats. The amount of boats and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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