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As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers on 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 restoration to the English throne 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), built more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 punt. Yachting was found to be popular for the rich and nobility, but after that point the fashion did not last.

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

Yacht racing began in some ordered method on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to the throne 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 formed 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, again at the rise of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for high stakes were held, and the social life was superlative. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased 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 continued when the English took control. Sailing was largely for leisure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts followed the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the later half of the 19th century. The design of sizeable yachts was initially heavily put upon by the success of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a group led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and built in the modern sense, with merely a model being used. Not until the latter 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 such science had previously done for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats had to be individually built, there arose a requirement for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was created, which resulted in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly blossoming areas in the sailing industry 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 areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping required. A great example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was an activity mostly for the aristocracy and the rich, cost was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller boats happened 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) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of small boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats 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 emulate sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in pleasure yachts. Bigger power yachts were progressed to a high element, and long-distance travel became a favourite activity of the rich. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then made way to those powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for many years. By the later half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority 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 bigger steam yachts. Notably 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 saw active service during World War II.

As bigger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger boats were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed in World War I. In the decade after that, bigger power-yacht manufacture grew, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The building of bigger power boats declined after 1932, and the fashion thereafter was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. From World War II, many small naval vessels were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a globally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and keeping their own small leisure boats. The amount of boats and sailors is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional locations along the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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