As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a leisure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation 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), built additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a £100 bet. Yachting was found to be fashionable for the wealthy and royalty, but after that point 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 group, and had great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club endured, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, when conglomerating with other societies, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated method on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to monarchy in 1820, it was then called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded with a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association had been initiated at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal funding made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the continued setting of British racing. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise 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 club life was wonderful. Ultimately 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 dominance. Sailing was largely for pleasure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which cruised on the Mediterranean Sea and established a benchmark of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The style of large yachts was originally heavily put upon by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a syndicate headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its success at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with only a model being 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 application of the research of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what it had done earlier for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats had been individually custom-built, there arose a need for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and edited in 1919. In modern times, one of the most rapidly growing areas in the field of sailing 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 aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be held on an even playing field with no handicapping necessary. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting belonged mostly for the nobility and the rich, cost was no issue, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller boats happened 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 voyage around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the seaworthiness of less sizeable yachts. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and recreational boats became more common, down to the dinghy, a favoured training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were setting sail single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, when steam began to take the place of sail power in market vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly employed in pleasure craft. Sizeable power yachts were progressed to a high element, and long-distance cruising was a favoured occupation of the affluent. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then gave way to boats powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of 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 push in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. Conspicuous among 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 more than 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 in World War II.

As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many big boats started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced from World War I. During the decade after, big power-yacht building blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the biggest auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The building of larger power yachts declined from 1932, and the fashion after that was for smaller, less expensive craft. From World War II, many small naval craft were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread beloved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and keeping their own small pleasure yachts. The amount of boats and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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