Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus./N.Z.) a yachting enthusiast.

1915		Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 11 Sept. 9/5: Two others [...] well known here, were ‘Yachtie’ Freeman and Malcolm McPhee.
1931		Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 28 Sept. 6/8: But the ‘yachtie’ takes them all as a matter of course.
1943		J.A.W. Bennett ‘English as it is Spoken in N.Z.’ in AS XVIII:2 Apr. 88: The same method of word formation gives, in both countries, yachty (yachtsman) [...].
1948		Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 13 Apr. 8/6: Wanted ‘Yachtie’ with auxiliary cruiser who would be interested in money making proposition.
1953		Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 28 Dec. 11/5: The Duke of Edinburgh [...] became just another Auckland ‘yachtie’.
1972		Sat. Rev. (US) 21 Oct. 62: Dunnie’s a yachtie, he lives up on the cliff, and he’s a rich guy who hasn’t worked a day in his life.
1984		Benjamin & Pearl Limericks Down Under 67: Two yachties who’d sailed from Balmoral [etc].
1999		Observer Escape 1 Aug. 5: Fiscardo’s preposterously pretty harbour [...] is a popular haunt for the ‘yachties.’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.