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As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht became a leisure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, borne from private challenges. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave 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, ruled 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 punt. Yachting became fashionable among the affluent and aristocracy, but after that period the trend did not last.

The first yacht club in the British Isles, the Water Club, was instigated in about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, with large naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after joining with other groups, it became known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some organized fashion on the Thames around 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 with a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht society 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 yachting. The society at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the ascension of George IV. All members were required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for great bets were held, and the club life was lovely. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats were raised in size to bigger than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English gained control. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in that area from the late 19th century. The first enduring American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was started in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts followed the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the latter half of the 19th century. The design of bigger yachts was originally heavily affected by the victory of America, which was created by George Steers for a club started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) was named after its win at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and manufactured in today’s 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 action. Not until the 1920s did the employment of the study of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such science had already done for hulls.

Because almost all sailboats were individually built, there came a requirement for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. Today, one of the rapidly flourishing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are created to single requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other areas (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be had on an even keel with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

As long as yachting was done primarily for the royal and the rich, expense was no issue, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The promotion and desire of smaller yachts occurred in the later 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) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the seaworthiness of smaller boats. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and recreational craft became more common, 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
Post the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to emulate sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly favoured in personal boats. Sizeable power yachts were developed to a high standard, and long-distance cruising was a favoured pastime of the well off. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then gave way to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht standard 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 rise in the manufacture of large steam yachts. Notably of 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 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 gave active service in World War II.

As bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large yachts were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed from World War I. From the decade following, bigger power-yacht manufacture flourished, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the best auxiliary yacht manufactured was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of larger power craft fell away after 1932, and the style after that was for smaller, less pricey yachts. Following World War II, a lot of small naval craft were traded by private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting is a internationally popular competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and keeping their own small recreational boats. The number of yachts and yachtsmen has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas on the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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