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As the Dutch rose to preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a leisure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting originated with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his return to the English throne 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 named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, reigned 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 wager. Yachting rose as classy for the affluent and nobility, but after that period the trend did not last.

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

Yacht racing began in some ordered method on the Thames about the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland funded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to the throne in 1820, it was known as the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded following a racing argument, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht association had been formed at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal patronage made the Solent - the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight - the continued location of British yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for high stakes were held, and the social life was superlative. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.

In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English took power. Sailing was largely for leisure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and set a minimum of luxury and elegance for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht group, the Detroit Boat Club, was started 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 took the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century until the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was originally heavily put upon by the win of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a association started by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its win at Cowes in 1851. Early yachts were not designed and manufactured in the modern sense, with only 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 science of aerodynamics do for the structure of sails and rigging what science had previously done for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had been individually manufactured, there arose a requirement for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were made. Thus, a rating rule was written, which is found in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the fastest blossoming areas in 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 aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be had on an even par with no handicapping necessary. A perfect example is the generic International America’s Cup Class taken on board for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

For the time that yachting was done mostly for the royal and the affluent, expense was no problem, and the size of boats increased, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and desire of smaller boats happened in the latter half of the 19th century in 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) sailed single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray made plain the seaworthiness of smaller boats. Later in the 20th century, for the larger part after World War II, smaller racing and leisure yachts became more common, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, in which steam began to replace sail power in public boats, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in pleasure vessels. Large power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance travel turned into a favoured pastime of the wealthy. The early power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to those powered by the fully submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht fashion for a number of years. By the latter half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were only power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a rise in the design of large steam yachts. In particular 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 at least 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 saw active service for World War II.

As more sizeable and better quality internal-combustion engines were created, many large boats started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, advanced for World War I. During the decade after that, bigger power-yacht creation grew, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The construction of large power craft declined in 1932, and the style from then was for smaller, less expensive boats. From World War II, lots of small naval vessels were bought by private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread loved activity enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually owning and keeping their own small leisure yachts. The amount of yachts and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional locations along the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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