CHARLES II. "Yaugh" - The first vessel to which the name of "yacht" was given in England.

Evelyn wrote in his diary, for October 1, 1661: "I sailed this morning with his Majesty in one of his yachts - (or pleasure boats), vessels not known among us till the Dutch East India Company presented that curious piece to the King." The "curious piece" arrived in England in this fashion. When Charles II. was recalled to England, he sailed to meet the English fleet in a Dutch yacht, escorted by twelve others. Charles remarked on the little vessels which had been evolved on the water-ways of Holland. The Dutchmen. realising that Charles, as King of England, would be a much more influential person than the exile they had known since 1649, asked him to accept a yacht which was then building, and which was sent to England subsequently. Charles acknowledged its receipt, writing in French, thus: "Maintenant vous avez encore rafraichie Nostre memoire par un nouveau present d'un Yaugh, des plus jolys et des plus agreables a nostre humeur qu'on auroit pu inventer' This letter was dated August 16, 1660. Pepys went to see the Dutch boat with Pett, the shipbuilder, on November 8, 1660, and noted that he was to build an English one to outdo it.

By January 13 1661, Pett's yacht was so far advanced that Pepys could see it, and report that it was "a pretty thing, and much beyond the Dutchman's."

Later we read of the yachts racing from Greenwich to Gravesend and back, attended by barges and kitchen boats.