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As the Dutch came to dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, borne from private challenges. English yachting began 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 sent him a 20-metre (66-foot) leisure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 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 rose as fashionable with the rich and nobility, but after that period the fashion 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 had great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, mostly as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by merging with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some stipulated manner on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to sovereignty in 1820, it came to be known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht group had been formed 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 yacht racing. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, likewise at the accession of George IV. All members were required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great stakes were held, and the club life was superlative. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to more than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and persisted when the English held dominance. Sailing was mostly for leisure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club while 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 until the later half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was initially greatly affected by the win of America, which was designed 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 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 application of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there arose a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the fastest growing areas in the field of sailing 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 areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing for these boats can be had on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class taken on for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

For the time that yachting was done largely for the aristocracy and the rich, cost was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The rise and desire of smaller boats occurred 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 journey around the world (1895–98) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of smaller boats. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more popular, down to the dinghy, a popular 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
After the decade 1840–50, in which steam started to take the place of sail power in public boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in personal craft. Bigger power yachts were developed to a high element, and long-distance travel was a preferred activity of the rich. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then made way to those powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.

During the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the manufacture of bigger steam yachts. In particular of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated by a crew of at least 150. The Mayflower, commissioned by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and saw active service for World War II.

As larger and more reliable internal-combustion engines were created, many large boats were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered for World War I. During the decade following that, large power-yacht manufacture blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. In that point the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The building of bigger power boats lessened in 1932, and the style from then was in preference of smaller, less expensive yachts. From World War II, a lot of small naval craft were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a widespread beloved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally owning and maintaining their own small recreational yachts. The number of yachts and yachtsmen increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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