As the Dutch found preeminence in sea power during the 17th century, the early yacht had been a pleasure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers on the canals as well as the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of private games. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English throne in 1660, the city of Amsterdam gave him a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, ruled 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 bet. Yachting rose as classy among the wealthy and nobility, but after that time the trend did not last.

The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was started around about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard group, and had much naval panoply and rigour. The closest thing to racing was the “chase,” in which the “fleet” pursued an imagined enemy. The club endured, for the large part as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, after merging with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing was first seen in some stipulated manner on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland instigated the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV came to monarchy in 1820, it came to be named 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 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 site of British yachting. The organisation at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, also at the rise of George IV. Every member was required to own boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing tests for high stakes were held, and the club life was splendid. Eventually Royal Yachting Club boats increased in size to over 350 tons.

In North America, yachting began with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and went on when the English had control. Sailing was largely for pleasure and found its high point in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and established a minimum of luxury and sophistication 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 instigated the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
Early sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through to the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of large yachts was initially heavily put upon by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a group 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. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in a contemporary sense, with only a model being used. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into being. Not until the 1920s did the application of the science of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what it had done earlier for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats had been individually built, there was a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were made. Therefore, a rating rule was decreed, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, 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 built to standard dimensions in length, beam, sail area, and other aspects (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing such boats can be done on an even basis with no handicapping required. A great example is the generic International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

As long as yachting belonged mostly for the aristocracy and the affluent, expense was no issue, and the size of boats developed, in both length and weight. The rise and popularity of smaller boats happened in the latter half of the 19th century out of 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) captained single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the value of small yachts. Thereafter in the 20th century, particularly after World War II, smaller racing and leisure craft became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a popular training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, craft of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Following the decade 1840–50, at which point steam began to take the place of sail power in public craft, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were increasingly used in pleasure yachts. Bigger power yachts were progressed to a high degree, and long-distance cruising was a favourite activity of the affluent. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave rise to boats powered by the wholly submerged screw or propeller type of propulsion. As well as naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries possessing both sail and power were the yacht archetype for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the majority were exclusively power yachts that had gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a push in the manufacture of large steam yachts. Conspicuous within these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, with 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 gave active service in World War II.

As larger and more dependable internal-combustion engines were produced, many bigger boats were using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, with heavy oil for fuel, progressed in World War I. In the decade following, large power-yacht manufacture blossomed, reaching a climax in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. During that point the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The manufacture of bigger power boats declined after 1932, and the trend from then was toward smaller, less expensive boats. After World War II, many small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting had become a widespread beloved competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen individually sailing and maintaining their own small recreational yachts. The number of craft and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places by the beach but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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