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As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht was a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), ordered for other 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 became classy for the affluent and nobility, but after that period the trend did not last.

The first yacht group in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, with great naval panoply and formality. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued a fictional enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other societies, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was seen in some organized method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to sovereignty in 1820, it was then 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 club 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 continued setting of British yachting. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the ascension of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large stakes were held, and the society life was superlative. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to over 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 dominance. Sailing was largely for fun 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 sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht society, 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 first sailing yachts followed the design of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was first greatly put upon by the victory of America, which was created by George Steers for a club 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. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with only a model used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what it had previously done for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats were individually custom-built, there came a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were built. Thus, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In the present day, one of the rapidly growing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to the same specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing such boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the uniform International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts 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 increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and popularity of smaller boats occurred in the later 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of less sizeable boats. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure yachts became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, at which point steam started to emulate sail power in market craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed increasingly in personal yachts. Large power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance cruising was a favoured pastime of the wealthy. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then made way to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the later half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of bigger steam yachts. Notably among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated 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 gave active service during World War II.

As more sizeable and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many big yachts started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, progressed for World War I. During the decade after that, large power-yacht manufacture flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the biggest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of bigger power craft lessened from 1932, and the trend thereafter was toward smaller, less expensive craft. Following World War II, lots of small naval boats were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally popular activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally sailing and keeping their own small leisure boats. The number of yachts and sailors increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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