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As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a leisure craft used first by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private challenges. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English throne 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, reigned 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 wager. Yachting became classy for the wealthy and nobility, but after that point the habit did not last.

The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with great naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, for the large part 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 was first seen 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 was 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 association 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 perpetual site of British racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the accession of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for great bets were held, and the social life was lovely. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to bigger than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English took control. Sailing was for the most part for pleasure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht association, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began 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 second half of the 19th century. The style of large yachts was first 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.) had its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with merely a model used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the use of the study of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what it had done earlier for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had to be individually built, there arose a need for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Hence, a rating rule came into being, which is found in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and edited in 1919. Today, one of the most rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry 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 elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing these boats can be held on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

As long as yachting belonged largely for the royal and the rich, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The rise and popularity of smaller boats 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 journey around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the value of smaller boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a favourite training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
After the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to replace sail power in commercial craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in personal craft. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high element, and long-distance cruising was a favoured activity of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the later half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively 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. 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 over 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 was used in active service during World War II.

As larger and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many large yachts began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. During the decade following, bigger power-yacht creation blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that point the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The building of large power yachts declined after 1932, and the trend from then was for smaller, less expensive boats. From World War II, many small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and upkeeping their own small pleasure craft. The amount of craft and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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