Sailing yacht

A sailing yacht (US ship prefixes SY or S/Y), is a leisure craft that uses sails as its primary means of propulsion. A yacht may be a sail or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, so the term applies here to sailing vessels that have a cabin with amenities that accommodate overnight use. To be termed a "yacht", as opposed to a "boat", such a vessel is likely to be at least in length and have been judged to have good aesthetic qualities. Sailboats that do not accommodate overnight use or are smaller than are not universally called yachts. Sailing yachts in excess of are generally considered to be superyachts. Sailing yachts are actively used in sport and are among categories recognized by the governing body of sailing sports, World Sailing. The term yacht originates from the Dutch word jacht (pl. jachten, which means "hunt"), and originally referred to light, fast sailing vessels that the Dutch Republic navy used to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries. The history of pleasure boats begins with rowed craft in Pharaonic Egyptian times. The history of sailing yachts begins in Europe in the beginning of the 1600s with the building of a pleasure vessel for the son of King James I of England. Pleasure vessels acquired the name yacht after the time of Charles II, who spent time exiled in Europe and visited the Netherlands, where a variety of jachten were already well developed as pleasure boats for the elite classes since the beginning of the 17th century. Upon his restoration to the English crown, Charles commissioned a series of royal yachts, which included at least one experimental catamaran. The first recorded yacht race between two vessels occurred in 1661, followed by the first open sailing competition in 1663 in English waters. Starting in 1739, England found itself in a series of wars—a period that saw a decline in yachting.