A yacht is a sailing or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a , as opposed to a , such a pleasure vessel is likely to be at least in length and may have been judged to have good aesthetic qualities. The Commercial Yacht Code classifies yachts and over as . Such yachts typically require a hired crew and have higher construction standards. Further classifications for large yachts are: —carrying no more than 12 passengers, —solely for the pleasure of the owner and guests, or by flag, the country under which it is registered. A superyacht (sometimes ) generally refers to any yacht (sail or power) longer than . Racing yachts are designed to emphasize performance over comfort. Charter yachts are run as a business for profit. As of 2020 there were more than 15,000 yachts of sufficient size to require a professional crew. Etymology 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. History The history of pleasure boats begins with rowed craft in Pharaonic Egyptian times, and other vessels in the waters of Burma, India, Mindanao and Japan. It described 8th-century Anglo-Saxon royal pleg-scips (play ships) that featured ornamented bows and sterns and which had the capability of cooking on board. Sail 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. While other monarchs used naval ships for transportation and conquest, James I was the first English monarch to commission the construction of a yacht—for his son Henry, Prince of Wales in the early 1600s. 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