“In the musical sense, ‘yacht rock’ refers to the highly polished brand of soft rock that emanated from Southern California during the late ’70s and early ’80s. The term is meant to suggest the kind of smooth, mellow music that early yuppies likely enjoyed while sipping champagne and snorting cocaine on their yachts. Additionally, since sailing was such a popular local leisure activity, some “yacht rockers” made nautical references in their lyrics and album artwork, particularly the anthemic track “Sailing” by Christopher Cross.

The foundation of the yacht rock scene was a local pool of versatile session musicians who frequently played on each other’s records, as well as those of many other artists. This professionalism often gave yacht rock recordings a high level of sophistication in purely musical areas such as composition, arrangement, and instrumental skill” – reallysmoothmusic.com