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As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a leisure craft used mostly by royalty and secondly by the burghers on the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Racing was incidental, arising as private matches. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his reaffirmation to the English monarchy 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 then named Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685-88), built additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and returning, on a 100 punt. Yachting became classy with the rich and nobility, but after that period the trend 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 great naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the "chase," for which the "fleet" pursued an imagined enemy. The club went on, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by joining with other clubs, it was known as the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was seen in some organized 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 came to monarchy in 1820, it came to be called 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 association had been started 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 continuing location of British yacht racing. The club at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the accession of George IV. Every member was required to possess boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing races for great stakes were held, and the club life was splendid. Ultimately Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to more than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English took control. Sailing was mostly for pleasure and found its epitome in George Crowinshield's Cleopatra's Barge (1815), which sailed on the Mediterranean Sea and set a standard of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in the area from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht society, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens instigated the New York Yacht Club aboard his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats

The first sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the later half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was originally heavily put upon by the success of America, which was drawn by George Steers for a club led by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America's Cup (q.v.) was named after its success at Cowes in 1851. The first yachts were not designed and built in a contemporary sense, with just a model being used. Not until the latter half of the 19th century did what was called naval architecture come about. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the design of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.

Because nearly all sailboats were individually custom-built, there arose a need for handicapping boats before the one-design class boats were built. Therefore, a rating rule came into being, which is found in the International Rule, accepted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly 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 requirements in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between such boats can be held on an even keel with no handicapping required. A perfect example is the generic International America's Cup Class taken on for yachts in the 1992 America's Cup race.

As long as yachting was done largely for the aristocracy and the rich, cost was no problem, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The ascendancy and popularity of smaller yachts came 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) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the seaworthiness of smaller yachts. Following this in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure yachts became more popular, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, boats of less than 3 m were sailed single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts

After the decade 1840-50, at which point steam started to replace sail power in commercial vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in leisure craft. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high element, and long-distance cruising became a favoured occupation of the affluent. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; they then made way to those powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller sort of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant yachts, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht standard for many years. By the latter half of the 20th century, several yachts were still auxiliaries, but the larger part were only power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.

From the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the design of more sizeable steam yachts. Notably among these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, containing triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was operated 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 larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many large boats started using them for power. The development of the diesel engine, employing heavy oil for fuel, was furthered during World War I. In the decade following that, large power-yacht building blossomed, hitting a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that period the largest auxiliary yacht built was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of big power boats lessened in 1932, and the fashion after that was in preference of smaller, less pricey craft. From World War II, lots of small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. At the late 20th century, yachting has become a widespread loved sport enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually manning and upkeeping their own small recreational yachts. The amount of boats and sailors has increased steadily, not only in the traditional places along the sea but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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