As the Dutch came to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a leisure craft used initially by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals as well as 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 restoration to the English monarchy 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), ordered for more yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and the same way back, on a £100 wager. Yachting rose as classy with the wealthy and royalty, but after that point the trend did not last.

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

Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated method on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it was known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing dispute, 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 sponsorship made the Solent - the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight - the continued site of British yachting. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. All members were required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for high bids were held, and the society life was lovely. Ultimately 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 persisted when the English gained dominance. Sailing was mostly for leisure and rose to its apogee 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 persisting American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The Early sailing yachts were within the lines of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the second half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was first largely affected by the win of America, which was designed by George Steers for a association 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. The first yachts were not designed and crafted in today’s sense, with merely a model being used. 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 research of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what such science had earlier done for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats had to be individually custom-built, there came a requirement for handicapping boats as this was before the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule came into being, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the fastest flourishing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to single specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between these boats can be done on an even basis with no handicapping required. A prime example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on for yachts in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was an activity primarily for the nobility and the affluent, cost was no issue, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The rise and popularity of smaller boats happened in the latter 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 trip around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray demonstrated the seaworthiness of small craft. Thereafter in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and recreational yachts became more common, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, when steam began to take the place of sail power in commercial boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were favoured increasingly in leisure vessels. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high standard, and long-distance cruising became a fond activity of the rich. The earliest power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; these then made way to those powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. As in the case of naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries carrying both sail and power were the yacht archetype for a number of years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were solely power yachts with gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the design of bigger steam yachts. Notably within 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 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 saw active service for World War II.

As bigger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were developed, many bigger yachts began using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, progressed during World War I. During the decade after that, bigger power-yacht creation flourished, 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 construction of large power boats fell away after 1932, and the trend from then was in preference of smaller, less expensive boats. After World War II, lots of small naval craft were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. By the late 20th century, yachting has become a globally loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen personally manning and keeping their own small recreational boats. The popularity of yachts and owners has increased steadily, not only in the traditional areas by the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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