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As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been 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. Yacht racing was incidental, arising as private challenges. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English royalty 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), built more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 punt. Yachting became popular with the wealthy and aristocracy, but after that time the fashion did not last.

The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard organization, with much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing boats was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club persisted, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after conglomerating with other organisations, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was seen in some ordered manner on the Thames around the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV ascended to monarchy 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 club had been initiated 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 continued location of British yacht racing. The society 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 matches for high stakes were held, and the society life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to more 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 had control. Sailing was for the most part for leisure and reached its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first continuing American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was instigated in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the second half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was initially heavily impacted by the victory of America, which was designed by George Steers for a association headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) had its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with merely a model for an outline. Not until the second half of the 19th century did what was known as naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the use of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what science had earlier done for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats had to be individually manufactured, there came a need for handicapping boats as this was previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Thus, a rating rule was decreed, which ended up in the International Rule, taken on in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the fastest flourishing areas in the field of sailing is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing those boats can be held on an even playing field with no handicapping at all. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for racers in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

For the time that yachting belonged primarily for the nobility and the rich, expense was no object, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and preference of smaller craft 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the value of smaller yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft 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
Following the decade 1840–50, during which steam was set to emulate sail power in market boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in leisure yachts. Large power yachts were developed to a high degree, and long-distance cruising turned into a favourite activity of the affluent. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to yachts powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of 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 push in the design of large steam yachts. Conspicuous within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed by a crew of more than 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 saw active service during World War II.

As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many big yachts were using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, advanced during World War I. In the decade after, big power-yacht building blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that time the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of large power yachts lessened from 1932, and the fashion after that was for smaller, less costly yachts. Following World War II, many small naval craft were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a globally beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually manning and upkeeping their own small recreational boats. The amount of yachts and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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