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As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals and the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing yachts was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting began 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 sent 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 wager. Yachting was found to be classy for the affluent and royalty, but after that time the habit did not last.

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

Yacht racing began in some stipulated method on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to sovereignty 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 sponsorship made the Solent - the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight - the perpetual location of British yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for large bids were held, and the society life was superlative. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.

In North America, yachting was first accomplished with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English had dominance. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and found its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and set a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board 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 later half of the 19th century. The design of large yachts was originally largely impacted 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.) was named after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with only a model being used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the research of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there came a need for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was decreed, which ended up in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly flourishing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to the same requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing these boats can be done on an even par with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on board for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

As long as yachting was an activity mostly for the royal and the affluent, money was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller craft 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 value of small yachts. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure yachts 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, at which point steam started to replace sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were used increasingly in leisure vessels. Sizeable power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance cruising became a favourite pastime of the affluent. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to yachts powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant craft, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for several years. By the latter half of the 20th century, many yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was manned 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 for World War II.

As bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many large boats began using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. In the decade that followed, large power-yacht creation blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that period the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The building of big power boats declined after 1932, and the style from then was toward smaller, less pricey yachts. After World War II, lots of small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting had become a internationally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and upkeeping their own small recreational boats. The popularity of craft and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional locations along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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