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As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht became a pleasure craft used mostly by royalty and later by the burghers in the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private matches. English yachting originated 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 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), built more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 wager. Yachting was found to be popular for the affluent and nobility, but after that period the fashion did not last.

The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, and held much naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” for which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when joining with other groups, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some ordered method on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to sovereignty in 1820, it was known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht club 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 continued location of British racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the rise of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high stakes were held, and the society life was splendid. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats were raised 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 took power. Sailing was for the most part for pleasure and rose to its epitome 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 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 lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of sizeable yachts was first largely affected by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a association 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 crafted in the modern sense, with merely a model used. Not until the later 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 previously done for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there arose a desire for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was created, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and amended in 1919. In modern times, one of the fastest blossoming areas in sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are built to standard dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for such boats can be done on an even par with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was an activity largely for the nobility and the rich, money was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller craft happened in the latter 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 journey around the world (1895–98) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the hardiness of smaller yachts. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure yachts became more common, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to take the place of sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in pleasure boats. Large power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance sailing was a preferred pastime of the affluent. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to those powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant boats, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for many years. By the later half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably among 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, bought 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 for World War II.

As more sizeable and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many big yachts began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced in World War I. In the decade after that, big power-yacht creation flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the best auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of big power yachts lessened from 1932, and the trend from then was for smaller, less pricey yachts. After World War II, lots of small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally popular competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and upkeeping their own small leisure boats. The number of yachts and sailors has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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