sailboat with two foresails

The Different Types Of Sails And When To Use Them – Complete Guide

Sail forms an integral part of a sailboat. When you sail on the open water and observe other boats (in various sizes), you’d have noticed how each boat type has a specific model of sail. If you’re a beginner in boating, you must know that there are a ton of different sails and they each have their own purpose.

As a general setup, sailboats will use three common sails, including headsail, mainsail, and specialty sail. Due to the varying wind conditions and the model of the sailboat, there are many types of sails including jib, genoa, trysail, storm jib, code zero, gennaker, and spinnaker.

While that sounds like too many models of sails, you can easily differentiate between them and choose the ideal model based on your purpose. This article guides you on this aspect. Let’s begin!

Different Types of Sails & When To Use Them

1. mainsail.

Mainsail is by far the most widely spotted sail model, and it’s usually fixed to the boom and fitted behind the mast. This offers the highest mileage to your sailboat, thereby maximizing speed and performance.

You can use a mainsail if:

You’re concerned about the performance
You need to go faster and utilize all wind power
You need to steer your boat irrespective of the wind’s status
You’ve a large boat and can offer adequate space to this sail.

This mainsail displays a wide surface area to make the most out of the available wind condition. As a result, you can steer your boat quite easily. However, the downside is its size. It is very large and hard to store if you need to take it down for some reason.

Check out my other article all about maintaing sails!

2. Headsail

Similar to a mainsail, it’s very easy to spot a head sail. Just look at the bow of the boat and see if there is a sail. If you see one then yes that’s a headsail. Also called a jib or genoa, a headsail is smaller in size compared to a mainsail and attaches in front of the mast to the forestay. The Foresail will not have a boom for the clew of the sail to attach to. The clew will be attached to the foresails sheet. It can be used without the mainsail in certain conditions but for the most part the two sails are used together. The foresail is always forward of the main.

The headsail comes in many different forms such as a jib, genoa, spinnaker or storm jib. The most common headsail is a jib or genoa.

You can use a headsail if:

Your sailboat is set up for it.
You don’t want to use the mainsail at this time.
Your mainsail is not usable.

The biggest advantage of a headsail is the option to protect yourself even if the wind turns unpredictable or wild. This all depends on the type of headsail you are using.

So, what are the different types of headsails? Let’s take a look!

As more boaters chose to use a headsail for their boats, the jib was introduced as one of its forms. The Jib is a form of headsail that is attached to a shackle present on the deck’s front region.

The Jib is a sail that does not go past the mast when it is raised and in use. If it goes past the mast then you probably have a genoa.

You can use a jib if:

You are out for a normal day of sailing in moderate wind speeds
You have a roller furling. Which is a sail that wraps up around itself.

Some weather conditions can make maneuvering harder or tighter than usual. As a result, it’s essential to use a jib in such cases. It functions well with boats containing a roller furling as the jib handles different positions and tackles the movement of the boat at ease.

2.2 Genoa

Just when you’ve got acquainted with the jib, genoa comes into the picture as a larger version of the jib. If you’re boating along a coastal region, the genoa sail is the one widely used and is attached to the front area of the deck as well.

Here’s a quick trick to find out if a boat has a genoa sail. This genoa is usually larger than a Jib. This means that the genoa effortlessly overlaps and extends itself beyond the mast, thereby covering the mainsail as well.

You should use a genoa sail if:

You’re planning to sail in minimum wind conditions. Less wind means you need more sail.
You find the wind to originate from the rear area.
You own a large boat. Remember that genoa can partially or completely cover the mainsail too. Larger sails for larger boats!

While it’s great for sailing in regular conditions, there are downsides associated with it. A genoa can put you in a dangerous situation if you are sailing in high wind conditions and don’t have the ability to furl in the sail. Furling in the sail will reduce the area of the sail and catch less wind.

Genoas do come in many sizes as well such as 110% or 120%.

The next section of the sail list are ones that aren’t necessary but can be helpful in certain situations. Let’s look at specialty sails!

3. Specialty Sail

While headsails and mainsails are quite commonly used, there are also specialty sails in the market to address specific requirements. Some of the widely seen specialty sails are spinnakers, storm jibs, and code zeros.

3.1 Spinnakers

Spinnaker is a sail dedicated to downwind and is quite large. Think of a beautifully covered parachute.

It’s easy to spot spinnakers as they resemble kites or parachutes. However, it crosses the bow of the boat and isn’t attached to the forestay.

Unlike the genoa sail that covers the mast, a spinnaker fails to do so. The advantage of a spinnaker is the surface area. When the wind is light, the spinnaker can catch a lot more wind giving you more speed. The Spinnaker is usually fixed to three points – pole, halyard, and sheet.

You should use a spinnaker if:

You have minimal wind on a run.
You are trying to harness as much wind power as you can.

While it has a wide surface area, the downside is its inability to steer the boat during strong wind conditions. It can even put the passengers at risk when the wind is at high speeds.

Make sure you have experience before trying out the spinnaker.

3.2 Storm Jibs

Storm jib is another type of specialty sail meant exclusively for rough weather. It’s a tiny, triangular structure that helps during offshore racing or cruising. Just think of it as a smaller jib.

You should use a storm jib if:

You’re going to sail in heavy weather conditions.
You anticipate high wind speeds.
You’re going to be in an offshore race and they are an approved sail type.

Note: In the case of an offshore racing requirement, it’s critical to take prior permission from the regulatory authority for using a storm jib.

3.3 Code Zeros

Code zero is another updated version of a spinnaker that’s meant to be a combination of genoa and gennaker sails. It resembles the look of a genoa but is a lot bigger.

You should use a code zero if:

You’re looking for an overlapping flying headsail.
You’re sailing only in light air conditions.
You’re looking for an alternative to a Genoa.

Having said that, a code zero or a screecher does the job of a genoa with better efficiencies.

3.4 Trysail

Trysail is another type of specialty sail that’s tiny, triangular, and can be fixed right above a gooseneck on the sailboat.

The Trysail is less known in the market as most boaters go ahead with common mainsails and headsails. It’s essential to acknowledge trysail as a front-and-aft mainsail model. It offers excellent performance and contains a permanent pennant in it.

You should use a trysail if:

You’re sailing in heavy weather conditions.
You’re looking for a storm replacement.
You are experienced with using them.

The quadrilateral sail in a trysail is usually turned and bent to a mast, and this helps in heading the vessel during windy conditions.

3.5 Gennakers

If you’ve been able to spot genoa and spinnaker in the past, identifying a gennaker is incredibly easy. A gennaker is a hybrid sail form that is small, slow, and requires no pole attached to the mast.

You should use a gennaker if:

You’re looking for a smaller version of a spinnaker.
You’ve no space to fix a pole to the mast.
You require the sail to be easily manageable.
You’re sailing in a region requiring minimum downwind levels.

Choosing a hybrid sail has a lot of benefits as it combines the usefulness of 2 sail models. However, being aware of their cons is critical to planning a safe sail.

As you begin using these sails, you can also look for better customizations. There are drifters, wind seekers, and other jib types that are meant to handle different wind conditions.

How Many Sails On A Sailboat ?

In general, a sailboat contains two sails. Two sails is the typical setup for the best performance of the boat during different wind conditions. It’s essential to pick your two sails based on your sailing plan.

Why Are There Two Sails On A Sailboat?

A sailboat uses two sails because the wind left over by the first sail is easily caught by the second sail. This helps in steering the sailboat to a better extent and gives the sailboat more power.

Final Thoughts

Sails are one of the major assets of a sailboat. From managing wind to maximizing the performance and longevity of a sailboat, the type of sails you use, plays a huge role. From the various sail types listed in this article, you can choose the best model that fits your sailing routine. Just make sure to remember to check and make sure they are the correct size for your vessel.

Make sure to plan ahead and have the right sails for your sailing weekend. Cheers!

Boatlifehq owner and author/editor of this article.

Why Do Sailboats Have Two Sails? (Explained)

If you’ve ever been sailing or watched a regatta, you’ll know that boats typically have two or more sails. It’s uncommon to see them with less than that. But what’s the reason behind this?

Sailboats have two sails to improve the boat’s maneuverability, balance, speed, and ease of handling. The front sail is called the jib, while the one behind it is the mainsail. Some boats have more than two sails to increase their stability and speed even further.

The way sailboats work is very interesting, so you’ll want to learn more! In this article, I’ll give you some in-depth explanations for why sailboats have two sails. So keep reading, everything you need to know is below.

How Does Having Two Sails Help Sailboats?

It’s rare to see a sailboat with only one sail, and this might make you wonder what the science is behind this phenomenon. So, how does having two sails help sailboats?

Having two sails (a mainsail and a jib) helps sailboats by allowing the sailor to better maneuver the sailboat through the water, easily increase the boat’s speed, and have better handling over the boat overall. In short, having two sails offers improved control over the boat.

With all these benefits, sailors can handle their boats with ease. I’ll discuss these points in more detail below:

Two Sails Offer Greater Maneuverability

Many beginner sailers make the mistake of assuming that sailboats move because the wind exerts a force on the sails.

This is only partly true because when a boat has more than one sail, the wind’s current is split along the mast into two rough wind streams on either side of the sail. The space in front of the sail will have a low-pressure area, while the wind will create high pressure behind it. The pressure difference exerts a force on the sails that propels them forward.

The sail will move in the wind stream direction with the lowest pressure by being dragged forward.

The lowest-pressure wind stream gradually stabilizes, resulting in the wind moving faster on that side of the sail. This causes the sailboat to move because the wind is pulling the sail, and it is the same concept as an airplane’s wings creating lift .

Having Two Sails Allows for Increased Speed

A sailboat speeds up when a sail is perpendicular to the wind, with the wind blowing into the sail.

However, having two or more sails can help your sailboat go even faster. Some wind gets caught on your mainsail and some blows around it when you’re out on the water. The air that moves around the mainsail contributes to your sailboat’s acceleration, which you could further increase by adding another sail.

A sailboat with two sails will move faster

Two Sails Increases the Ease of Handling

When boats have two sails, you can handle them much easier. This is because all boats have a pivot point located behind the mast. Most of the mainsail’s surface area is behind the pivot point.

If you were to sail your boat with only the mainsail, the wind’s force behind the pivot point would be greater than the force in front of it. The sailboat would then tend to turn in the wind’s direction.

In a strong wind, sailing with only the mainsail would mean that your rudder wouldn’t be powerful enough to steer the sailboat, and you would need to rely on the mainsail to steer your boat.

However, adding a jib to your sailboat would balance out the force from the mainsail, making it easier for the sailor to handle and making the boat more stable.

A sailboat’s keel helps keep it upright by compensating for the wind’s sideways forces. However, you adjust the jib slightly to move the sailboat in another direction, proving that having two sails helps you control your sailboat more effectively.

What Are Boats With Two Sails Called?

Boats with two sails are called cutters or sloops. Both have a mast with two sails, but a cutter has two foresails, while a sloop has a mainsail and a jib. Ketches are also sailboats but feature more than one mast with multiple smaller sails.

There are a variety of sailboats out there. Below is some more information about these three sailboat varieties:

Cutter: Sail Configuration

Like sloops, cutters have a single mast. Unlike sloops, cutters usually have two headsails. Cutter headsails tend to have a lower center of gravity than the jib sail of sloops, giving cutters more stability and better control in rough conditions. Cutters are commonly seen in Bermuda-rigged or gaff-rigged configurations.

Regardless of the configuration, cutter rigging is more complex than the rigging of most sloops. This makes them a bit more challenging to handle single-handed.

Sloop: Sail Configuration

When most people think about sailboats, this is the one they see in their minds. The classic single mast, double sail configuration with a Bermuda rig is fun to sail and reasonably easy to control. The high-profile mast does, however, make them easier to capsize in rough conditions.

While the Bermuda rig is the most popular configuration for sloops, it is not the only one. Some sloops feature fractional sloop rigs or specially designed racing rigs. Fractional sloop rigs offer more stability options and usually are preferred for extended offshore use. As you may have guessed, Racing rigs are designed for speed and maneuverability.

Ketch: Sail Configuration

We’ll now take a short visit to touch on a type of sailboat with more than one mast. Ketches feature a taller mainmast near the front of the boat and a shorter mast near the rear. The shorter mast is called the mizzenmast.

This split rig divides the sail plan into smaller components than a single mast sailboat. A ketch can be either Bermuda-rigged or gaff-rigged. Ketches usually have smaller sails and shorter masts than sloops or cutters, making them easier to control in difficult weather conditions.

Though generally slower than their single mast cousins, sailors who prefer safety over speed tend to favor ketches for their durability and the peace of mind that comes from having a second mast.

Yawls are closely related to ketches, yet the mizzenmasts are set further back.

Why Do Sailboats Have Two Sails – Final Thoughts

Sailboats have two sails as they allow the sailor to:

Enable better maneuverability
Increase their traveling speed
Improve the sailboat’s ease of handling

Sailboats with two sails and one mast can be either sloops or cutters.

Bryan is a Las Vegas resident who loves spending his free time out on the water. Boating on Lake Mohave or Lake Havasu is his favorite way to unwind and escape the hustle and bustle of the city. More about Bryan.

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The Different Types of Sailboats

If you’re a sailboat fanatic like me, all types of sailboats will attract your attention. Some more so than others admittedly, but all will have something about them that catches your eye.

If you’re not a fanatic (not yet, that is) but just an interested observer, then the first thing you’ll notice about a sailboat will be how many masts it has and the configuration of its sails - in other words, its 'rig'.

This observation alone will enable you to identify the five main types of sailboats — sloops, cutters, ketches, yawls and schooners - all of which are described here.

But apart from the various rig types, you can describe types of sailboats from a different viewpoint - sailing dinghies, dayboats, motorsailors, monohulls, catamarans and trimarans.

Let's make a start with the various rig types...

A single-masted sailboat with just two sails — a foresail (aka headsail or jib) and a mainsail — is a sloop, the purest type of sailboat.

The sloop rig can also be described as a Bermuda rig, Bermudian rig or Marconi rig.

Examples of Sloops

If a sloop has an additional sail between the headsail and the mainsail, then it's no longer a sloop - it's a cutter.

Some cutters - like the one shown here - have the foresail set forward on a bowsprit, with the inner forestay permanently rigged to the stemhead where the foresail otherwise would be, or to a central chainplate further aft on the foredeck.

Examples of Cutters

The following boats may look like cutters with their double headsails, but they're not cutters at all...

Trintilla 44 cruising yacht with solent rig

To find out why, click here...

A ketch is a two-masted sailboat, a main mast forward and a shorter mizzen mast aft.

But not all two-masted sailboats are ketches — they might be yawls (see below).

A ketch may also sport a staysail, with or without a bowsprit, in which case it would be known as a cutter-rigged or staysail ketch.

Examples of Ketches

Note that the Ocean 71 and the Irwin 52 are cutter-rigged, and are traditionally referred to as Staysail Ketches .

Cat Ketches

Cat-ketches are recognised by the lack of any standing rigging to support their pair of unstayed masts.

And yes, if the after mast is taller than the foremast then it's called a cat- schooner sailboat.

Examples of the Various Types of Sailboats...

Other Types of Sailboats

The seven sailboat rig variations shown here are the most popular types of modern cruising boat rigs, but there are other rig versions which were once found on commercial, fishing, and naval sailing vessels.

They include:

Full square-rigged sailing vessels
Barkentines
Brigantines

And you can see examples of them here ...

In this article I've said that ketches, yawls and schooners with two headsails can be called cutter rigged. This is a commonly used description but strictly speaking, there's only one rig that can accurately be called a cutter - and that's a single-masted sailboat with two headsails. My thanks to 'Old Salt' for drawing my attention to this!

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Guide to Understanding Sail Rig Types (with Pictures)

There are a lot of different sail rig types and it can be difficult to remember what's what. So I've come up with a system. Let me explain it in this article.

What are the different types of sail rig? The sail rig is determined by the number of masts and the layout and shape of sails. Most modern ships are fore-and-aft rigged, while old ships are square-rigged. Rigs with one mast are sloops and cutters. Ketches, yawls, brigs, and schooners have two masts. Barques have three masts. Rigs can contain up to seven masts.

'Yeah, that's a gaff brig, and that a Bermuda cutter' - If you don't know what this means (neither did I) and want to know what to call a two-masted ship with a square-rigged mainsail, this article is definitely for you.

Sailboat in front of NYC with Bermuda mainsail and Jib

The Ultimate Guide to Sail Types and Rigs (with Pictures)

First of all, what is a sail rig? A sail rig is the way in which the sails are attached to the mast(s). In other words, it's the setup or configuration of the sailboat. The rig consists of the sail and mast hardware. The sail rig and sail type are both part of the sail plan. We usually use the sail rig type to refer to the type of boat.

Let's start by taking a look at the most commonly used modern sail rigs. Don't worry if you don't exactly understand what's going on. At the end of this article, you'll understand everything about rig types.

Diagram of most common rig types (Bermuda sloop, gaff cutter, gaff ketch, gaf schooner, full rigged ship)

The sail rig and sail plan are often used interchangeably. When we talk of the sail rig we usually mean the sail plan . Although they are not quite the same. A sail plan is the set of drawings by the naval architect that shows the different combinations of sails and how they are set up for different weather conditions. For example a light air sail plan, storm sail plan, and the working sail plan (which is used most of the time).

So let's take a look at the three things that make up the sail plan.

The 3 things that make up the sail plan

I want to do a quick recap of my previous article. A sail plan is made up of:

Mast configuration - refers to the number of masts and where they are placed
Sail type - refers to the sail shape and functionality
Rig type - refers to the way these sails are set up on your boat

I'll explore the most common rig types in detail later in this post. I've also added pictures to learn to recognize them more easily. ( Click here to skip to the section with pictures ).

How to recognize the sail plan?

So how do you know what kind of boat you're dealing with? If you want to determine what the rig type of a boat is, you need to look at these three things:

Check the number of masts, and how they are set up.
You look at the type of sails used (the shape of the sails, how many there are, and what functionality they have).
And you have to determine the rig type, which means the way the sails are set up.

Below I'll explain each of these factors in more detail.

The most common rig types on sailboats

To give you an idea of the most-used sail rigs, I'll quickly summarize some sail plans below and mention the three things that make up their sail plan.

Bermuda sloop - one mast, one mainsail, one headsail, fore-and-aft rigged
Gaff cutter - one mast, one mainsail, two staysails, fore-and-aft rigged
Gaff schooner - two-masted (foremast), two mainsails, staysails, fore-and-aft rigged
Gaff ketch - two-masted (mizzen), two mainsails, staysails, fore-and-aft rigged
Full-rigged ship or tall ship - three or more masts, mainsail on each mast, staysails, square-rigged

The first word is the shape and rigging of the mainsail. So this is the way the sail is attached to the mast. I'll go into this later on. The second word refers to the mast setup and amount of sails used.

Most sailboats are Bermuda sloops. Gaff-rigged sails are mostly found on older, classic boats. Square-rigged sails are generally not used anymore.

But first I want to discuss the three factors that make up the sail plan in more detail.

Ways to rig sails

There are basically two ways to rig sails:

From side to side, called Square-rigged sails - the classic pirate sails
From front to back, called Fore-and-aft rigged sails - the modern sail rig

Almost all boats are fore-and-aft rigged nowadays.

Square sails are good for running downwind, but they're pretty useless when you're on an upwind tack. These sails were used on Viking longships, for example. Their boats were quicker downwind than the boats with fore-and-aft rigged sails, but they didn't handle as well.

The Arabs first used fore-and-aft rigged sails, making them quicker in difficult wind conditions.

Quick recap from part 1: the reason most boats are fore-and-aft rigged today is the increased maneuverability of this configuration. A square-rigged ship is only good for downwind runs, but a fore-and-aft rigged ship can sail close to the wind, using the lift to move forward.

The way the sails are attached to the mast determines the shape of the sail. The square-rigged sails are always attached the same way to the mast. The fore-and-aft rig, however, has a lot of variations.

The three main sail rigs are:

Bermuda rig - most used - has a three-sided (triangular) mainsail
Gaff rig - has a four-sided mainsail, the head of the mainsail is guided by a gaff
Lateen rig - has a three-sided (triangular) mainsail on a long yard

The Bermuda is the most used, the gaff is a bit old-fashioned, and the lateen rig is outdated (about a thousand years). Lateen rigs were used by the Moors. The Bermuda rig is actually based on the Lateen rig (the Dutch got inspired by the Moors).

Diagram of lateen, gaff, and bermuda rig

Other rig types that are not very common anymore are:

Junk rig - has horizontal battens to control the sail
Settee rig - Lateen with the front corner cut off
Crabclaw rig

Mast configuration

Okay, we know the shape of the mainsail. Now it's time to take a look at the mast configuration. The first thing is the number of masts:

one-masted boats
two-masted boats
three-masted boats
four masts or up
full or ship-rigged boats - also called 'ships' or 'tall ships'

I've briefly mentioned the one and two mast configurations in part 1 of this article. In this part, I'll also go over the three-masted configurations, and the tall ships as well.

A boat with one mast has a straightforward configuration because there's just one mast. You can choose to carry more sails or less, but that's about it.

A boat with two masts or more gets interesting. When you add a mast, it means you have to decide where to put the extra mast: in front, or in back of the mainmast. You can also choose whether or not the extra mast will carry an extra mainsail. The placement and size of the extra mast are important in determining what kind of boat we're dealing with. So you start by locating the largest mast, which is always the mainmast.

From front to back: the first mast is called the foremast. The middle mast is called the mainmast. And the rear mast is called the mizzenmast.

Diagram of different mast names (foremast, mainmast, mizzenmast)

What is the mizzenmast? The mizzenmast is the aft-most (rear) mast on a sailboat with three or more masts or the mast behind the mainmast on a boat with two masts. The mizzenmast carries the mizzen sail. On a two-masted boat, the mizzenmast is always (slightly) smaller than the mainmast. What is the purpose of the mizzen sail? The mizzen sail provides more sail area and flexibility in sail plan. It can be used as a big wind rudder, helping the sailor to have more control over the stern of the ship. It pushes the stern away from the wind and forces the bow in the opposite way. This may help to bring the bow into the wind when at anchor.

I always look at the number of masts first, because this is the easiest to spot. So to make this stuff more easy to understand, I've divided up the rig types based on the number of masts below.

Why would you want more masts and sail anyways?

Good question. The biggest advantage of two masts compared to one (let's say a ketch compared to a sloop), is that it allows you to use multiple smaller sails to get the same sail area. It also allows for shorter masts.

This means you reduce the stress on the rigging and the masts, which makes the ketch rig safer and less prone to wear and tear. It also doesn't capsize as quickly. So there are a couple of real advantages of a ketch rig over a sloop rig.

In the case of one mast, we look at the number of sails it carries.

Boats with one mast can have either one sail, two sails, or three or more sails.

Most single-masted boats are sloops, which means one mast with two sails (mainsail + headsail). The extra sail increases maneuverability. The mainsail gives you control over the stern, while the headsail gives you control over the bow.

Sailor tip: you steer a boat using its sails, not using its rudder.

The one-masted rigs are:

Cat - one mast, one sail
Sloop - one mast, two sails
Cutter - one mast, three or more sails

Diagram of one-masted rigs (bermuda cat, bermuda sloop, gaff cutter)

The cat is the simplest sail plan and has one mast with one sail. It's easy to handle alone, so it's very popular as a fishing boat. Most (very) small sailboats are catboats, like the Sunfish, and many Laser varieties. But it has a limited sail area and doesn't give you the control and options you have with more sails.

The most common sail plan is the sloop. It has one mast and two sails: the main and headsail. Most sloops have a Bermuda mainsail. It's one of the best racing rigs because it's able to sail very close to the wind (also called 'weatherly'). It's one of the fastest rig types for upwind sailing.

It's a simple sail plan that allows for high performance, and you can sail it short-handed. That's why most sailboats you see today are (Bermuda) sloops.

This rig is also called the Marconi rig, and it was developed by a Dutch Bermudian (or a Bermudian Dutchman) - someone from Holland who lived on Bermuda.

A cutter has three or more sails. Usually, the sail plan looks a lot like the sloop, but it has three headsails instead of one. Naval cutters can carry up to 6 sails.

Cutters have larger sail area, so they are better in light air. The partition of the sail area into more smaller sails give you more control in heavier winds as well. Cutters are considered better for bluewater sailing than sloops (although sloops will do fine also). But the additional sails just give you a bit more to play with.

Two-masted boats can have an extra mast in front or behind the mainmast. If the extra mast is behind (aft of) the mainmast, it's called a mizzenmast . If it's in front of the mainmast, it's called a foremast .

If you look at a boat with two masts and it has a foremast, it's most likely either a schooner or a brig. It's easy to recognize a foremast: the foremast is smaller than the aft mast.

If the aft mast is smaller than the front mast, it is a sail plan with a mizzenmast. That means the extra mast has been placed at the back of the boat. In this case, the front mast isn't the foremast, but the mainmast. Boats with two masts that have a mizzenmast are most likely a yawl or ketch.

The two-masted rigs are:

Lugger - two masts (mizzen), with lugsail (a cross between gaff rig and lateen rig) on both masts
Yawl - two masts (mizzen), fore-and-aft rigged on both masts. Main mast is much taller than mizzen. Mizzen without a mainsail.
Ketch - two masts (mizzen), fore-and-aft rigged on both masts. Main mast with only slightly smaller mizzen. Mizzen has mainsail.
Schooner - two masts (foremast), generally gaff rig on both masts. Main mast with only slightly smaller foremast. Sometimes build with three masts, up to seven in the age of sail.
Bilander - two masts (foremast). Has a lateen-rigged mainsail and square-rigged sails on the foremast and topsails.
Brig - two masts (foremast), partially square-rigged. The main mast carries small lateen-rigged sail.

Diagram of two-masted rigs (gaff yawl, gaff ketch, gaff schooner, and brig)

The yawl has two masts that are fore-and-aft rigged and a mizzenmast. The mizzenmast is much shorter than the mainmast, and it doesn't carry a mainsail. The mizzenmast is located aft of the rudder and is mainly used to increase helm balance.

A ketch has two masts that are fore-and-aft rigged. The extra mast is a mizzenmast. It's nearly as tall as the mainmast and carries a mainsail. Usually, the mainsails of the ketch are gaff-rigged, but there are Bermuda-rigged ketches too. The mizzenmast is located in front of the rudder instead of aft, as on the yawl.

The function of the ketch's mizzen sail is different from that of the yawl. It's actually used to drive the boat forward, and the mizzen sail, together with the headsail, are sufficient to sail the ketch. The mizzen sail on a yawl can't really drive the boat forward.

Schooners have two masts that are fore-and-aft rigged. The extra mast is a foremast which is generally smaller than the mainmast, but it does carry a mainsail. Schooners are also built with a lot more masts, up to seven (not anymore). The schooner's mainsails are generally gaff-rigged.

The schooner is easy to sail but not very fast. It handles easier than a sloop, except for upwind, and it's only because of better technology that sloops are now more popular than the schooner.

The brig has two masts. The foremast is always square-rigged. The mainmast can be square-rigged or is partially square-rigged. Some brigs carry a lateen mainsail on the mainmast, with square-rigged topsails.

Some variations on the brig are:

Brigantine - two masts (foremast), partially square-rigged. Mainmast carries no square-rigged mainsail.

Hermaphrodite brig - also called half brig or schooner brig. Has two masts (foremast), partially square-rigged. Mainmast carries a gaff rig mainsail and topsail, making it half schooner.

Three-masted boats are mostly barques or schooners. Sometimes sail plans with two masts are used with more masts.

The three-masted rigs are:

Barque - three masts, fore, and mainmast are square-rigged, the mizzenmast is usually gaff-rigged. All masts carry mainsail.
Barquentine - three masts, foremast is square-rigged, the main and mizzenmast are fore-and-aft rigged. Also called the schooner barque.
Polacca - three masts, foremast is square-rigged, the main and mizzenmast are lateen-rigged.
Xebec - three masts, all masts are lateen-rigged.

Diagram of three-masted rigs (barque, full rigged ship)

A barque has three or four masts. The fore and mainmast are square-rigged, and the mizzen fore-and-aft, usually gaff-rigged. Carries a mainsail on each mast, but the mainsail shape differs per mast (square or gaff). Barques were built with up to five masts. Four-masted barques were quite common.

Barques were a good alternative to full-rigged ships because they require a lot fewer sailors. But they were also slower. Very popular rig for ocean crossings, so a great rig for merchants who travel long distances and don't want 30 - 50 sailors to run their ship.

Barquentine

The barquentine usually has three masts. The foremast is square-rigged and the main and mizzenmast fore-and-aft. The rear masts are usually gaff-rigged.

Faster than a barque or a schooner, but the performance is worse than both.

The polacca or polacre rig has three masts with a square-rigged foremast. The main and mizzenmast are lateen-rigged. Beautiful boat to see. Polacca literally means 'Polish' (it's Italian). It was a popular rig type in the Mediterranean in the 17th century. It looks like the xebec, which has three lateen-rigged masts.

Fun fact: polaccas were used by a Dutch sailor-turned-Turkish-pirate (called Murat Reis).

The xebec is a Mediterranean trading ship with three masts. All masts are lateen-rigged. I couldn't find any surviving xebecs, only models and paintings. So I guess this rig is outdated a long time.

A boat with three or more masts that all carry square-rigged sails is called a ship, a tall ship, or a full-rigged ship. So it's at this point that we start calling boats 'ships'. It has nothing to do with size but with the type of rigging.

More sails mean less stress on all of them. These ships use a lot of sails to distribute the forces, which reduces the stress on the rigging and the masts. Square sails mean double the sail area in comparison to triangular sails.

They are quite fast for their size, and they could outrun most sloops and schooners (schooners were relatively a lot heavier). The reason is that tall ships could be a lot longer than sloops, giving them a lot of extra hull speed. Sloops couldn't be as large because there weren't strong enough materials available. Try making a single triangular sail with a sail area of over 500 sq. ft. from linen.

So a lot of smaller sails made sense. You could have a large ship with a good maximum hull speed, without your sails ripping apart with every gust of wind.

But you need A LOT of sailors to sail a tall ship: about 30 sailors in total to ie. reef down sails and operate the ship. That's really a lot.

Tall ships are used nowadays for racing, with the popular tall ship races traveling the world. Every four years I go and check them out when they are at Harlingen (which is very close to where I live).

Check out the amazing ships in this video of the tall ship races last year near my hometown. (The event was organized by friends of mine).

What is the difference between a schooner and a sloop? A schooner has two masts, whereas the sloop only has one. The schooner carries more sails, with a mainsail on both masts. Also, sloops are usually Bermuda-rigged, whereas schooners are usually gaff-rigged. Most schooners also carry one or two additional headsails, in contrast to the single jib of the sloop.

What do you call a two-masted sailboat? A two-masted sailboat is most likely a yawl, ketch, schooner, or brig. To determine which one it is you have to locate the mainmast (the tallest). At the rear: schooner or brig. In front: yawl or ketch. Brigs have a square-rigged foremast, schooners don't. Ketches carry a mainsail on the rear mast; yawls don't.

What is a sloop rig? A sloop rig is a sailboat with one mast and two sails: a mainsail and headsail. It's a simple sail plan that handles well and offers good upwind performance. The sloop rig can be sailed shorthanded and is able to sail very close to the wind, making it very popular. Most recreational sailboats use a sloop rig.

What is the difference between a ketch and a yawl? The most important difference between a ketch and a yawl are the position and height of the mizzenmast. The mizzenmast on a yawl is located aft of the rudder, is shorter than the mainmast and doesn't carry a mainsail. On a ketch, it's nearly as long as the mainmast and carries a mainsail.

Pinterest image for Guide to Understanding Sail Rig Types (with Pictures)

There are a wonderful lots of DIY changeability shows on the cable airwaves these days.

Rick the rigger

There are SO many errors on this site it really should be taken down.

First major mistake is to say you are no longer afraid of the sea.

One that truly gets up my nose is the term ‘fully’ rigged ship. It’s a FULL rigged ship!! Your mast names are the wrong way round and just because there may be 3 it doesn’t automatically mean the one in the middle is the main.

I could go on and totally destroy your over inflated but fragile ego but I won’t. All I will say is go learn a lot more before posting.

Shawn Buckles

Thanks for your feedback. If you like to point out anything more specific, please let me know and I will update the articles. I’ve changed fully-rigged to full-rigged ship - which is a typo on my part. I try to be as concise as I can, but, obviously, we all make mistakes every now and then. The great thing about the internet is that we can learn from each other and update our knowledge together.

If you want to write yourself and share your knowledge, please consider applying as a writer for my blog by clicking on the top banner.

Thanks, Shawn

Well, I feel that I’ve learned a bit from this. The information is clear and well laid out. Is it accurate? I can’t see anything at odds with the little I knew before, except that I understood a xebec has a square rigged centre mainmast, such as the Pelican ( https://www.adventureundersail.com/ )

Hi, Shawn, You forgot (failed) to mention another type of rig? The oldest type of rig known and still functions today JUNK RIG!

Why are so many of the comments here negative. I think it is wonderful to share knowledge and learn together. I knew a little about the subject (I’m an Aubrey-Maturin fan!) but still found this clarified some things for me. I can’t comment therefore on the accuracy of the article, but it seems clear to me that the spirit of the author is positive. We owe you some more bonhomme I suggest Shawn.

As they say in the Navy: “BZ” - for a good article.

Been reading S.M. Stirling and wanted to understand the ship types he references. Thank you, very helpful.

This site is an awesome starting point for anyone who would like to get an overview of the subject. I am gratefull to Shawn for sharing - Thanks & Kudos to you! If the negative reviewers want to get a deeper technical knowledge that is accurate to the n-th then go study the appropriate material. Contribute rather than destroy another’s good work. Well done Shawn. Great job!

Good stuff Shawn - very helpful. As a novice, it’s too confusing to figure out in bits and pieces. Thanks for laying it out.

First of all I have to say that Rick ‘the rigger’ is obviously the one with the “over inflated but fragile ego” and I laughed when you suggested he share his knowledge on your blog, well played!

As for the content it’s great, hope to read more soon!

Alec Lowenthal

Shawn, I have a painting of a Spanish vessel, two masted, with. Lateen sails on both masts and a jib. The mainsail is ahead of the main mast (fore) and the other is aft of the mizzen mast. Would this be what you call lugger rig? I have not seen a similar picture. Thanks, Alec.

Thank you for your article I found easy to read and understand, and more importantly remember, which emphasises the well written.. Pity about the negative comments, but love your proactive responses!

This vessel, “SEBASTIAN” out of Garrucha, Almería, España, was painted by Gustave Gillman in 1899.

Sorry, picture not accepted!

Thank you for a very informative article. I sail a bit and am always looking for more knowledge. I like the way you put forth your info and I feel if you can’t say anything positive, then that person should have their own blog or keep their opinions to their-self. I will be looking for more from you. I salute your way of dealing with negative comments.

Thank you for a great intro to sailing boats! I searched different sailboats because I use old sails tp make bags and wanted to learn the difference. Way more than I ever expected. Thanks for all the work put in to teach the rest of us.

Your description of a cutter is lacking, and your illustrations of “cutters” are actually cutter-rigged sloops. On a true cutter, the mast is moved further aft (with more than 40% of the ship forward of the mast). A sloop uses tension in the backstay to tension the luff of the foresail. The cutter can’t do this.

Also, a bermuda-rigged ketch will have a line running from the top of the mainmast to the top of the mizzenmast.

wow great guide to rig types! thanks

Interesting guide, however I am confused about the description of the brig. You say the main mast on a brig can have a lateen sail, but in your picture it looks like a gaff sail to me. How is it a lateen sail?

Hi Shawn, thank you for taking the time to share this information. It is clear and very helpful. I am new to sailing and thinking of buying my own blue water yacht. The information you have supplied is very useful. I still am seeking more information on performance and safety. Please keep up the good work. Best Regards

mickey fanelli

I’m starting to repair a model sailboat used in the lake I have three masts that have long been broken off and the sails need replacement. So my question is there a special relationship between the three masts I do have reminents of where the masts should go. they all broke off the boat along with the sails I can figure out where they go because of the old glue marks but it makes no sense. or does it really matter on a model thank you mickey

Cool, total novice here. I have learnt a lot. Thanks for sharing - the diagrams along with the text make it really easy to understand, especially for a beginner who hasn’t even stepped on a sailing boat.

Daryl Beatt

Thank you. Cleared up quite a few things for me. For example, I was familiar with the names “Xebecs” and “Polaccas” from recent reading about the Barbary War. I had gathered that the two Barbary types were better suited to sailing in the Med, but perhaps they were less able to be adaptable to military uses,(but one might assume that would be ok if one plans to board and fight, as opposed to fight a running gun duel). Specifically, the strangely one sided August 1, 1801 battle between the USS Enterprise under Lt. John Sterett and the Polacca cruiser Tripoli under Admiral Rais Mahomet Rous. On paper both ships seemed nearly equal in size, guns and crew, but pictures of the battle are confusing. While the Enterprise is usually rendered as the familiar schooner, the polacca Tripoli has been pictured in radically different ways. Thus the Wikipedia picture by Hoff in 1878 used to illustrate the Battle shows a Brig design for Tripoli, indicating 77 years later, polaccas were no longer common.

Lee Christiansen

I am curious as to what you would call a modern race boat with a fractional jib,not equipped for full masthead hoist? Thanks Lee

Thanks Guy: The information and pictures really eliminate a lot of the mystery of the terminology and the meanings. Also appreciate the insight of the handling idiosyncrasies “hand” (staff) requirements to manage a vessel for one that has not been on the water much. I long to spend significant time afloat, but have concern about the ability to handle a vessel due to advancing age. The Significant Other prefers to sit (in AC comfort)and be entertained by parties of cruise line employees. Thanks again for the information.

Gordon Smith

Your discussion made no mention of the galleon, a vessel with either square-rigged Fore and Main masts and a shorter lateen-rigged Mizzen, or, on larger galleons, square-rigged Fore and Main masts, with a lateen-rigged Mizzen and a lateen-rigged Bonaventure mast, both shorter than either the Fore or Main masts. Also, it was not uncommon for a galleon to hoist a square-rigged bowsprit topsail in addition to the usual square-rigged spritsail.

Emma Delaney

As a hobbyist, I was hesitant to invest in expensive CAD software, but CADHOBBY IntelliCAD has proven to be a cost-effective alternative that delivers the same quality and performance.

https://www.cadhobby.com/

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Cutter-Rigged Sailboat Definition: Everything You Need to Know

by Emma Sullivan | Aug 12, 2023 | Sailboat Lifestyle

Short answer cutter-rigged sailboat definition:

A cutter-rigged sailboat is a type of sailing vessel characterized by its rigging configuration, which includes a single mast set further aft and multiple headsails. This design offers versatility in various wind conditions, providing better control and balance while sailing.

1) What is a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat? A Comprehensive Definition

A cutter-rigged sailboat is a versatile and elegant type of sailing vessel that offers sailors a range of benefits and capabilities. With its distinctive rigging setup, the cutter sailboat has long been favored by sailors for its maneuverability, stability, and ability to handle different wind conditions. In this comprehensive definition, we will delve into the intricacies of the cutter rig and explore why it remains a popular choice among sailing enthusiasts.

At its core, a cutter-rigged sailboat features a specific arrangement of sails and mast configuration. Unlike other types of rigs like sloop or ketch, a cutter possesses two headsails – both the jib and staysail. The jib is usually larger and set forward to catch the main flow of wind, while the staysail sits between the foremost mast (known as the foremast) and the mainmast. This arrangement provides maximum control over different wind speeds and directions. While some smaller cutters may have only one mast, larger vessels often boast multiple masts, creating an impressive silhouette on the water.

One of the main advantages of a cutter rig is its versatility in handling various weather conditions . The combination of a large jib upfront with its increased surface area allows for heightened propulsion when sailing downwind or with favorable winds behind you. On the other hand, when facing challenging upwind conditions where close-hauled sailing is required, a smaller but easily controllable staysail comes into play. This dual headsail setup gives sailors better options for optimal sail configurations depending on wind angles – an invaluable feature that makes cutters ideal for long-distance cruising or racing.

Additionally, stability plays a crucial role in determining why many sailors opt for cutter-rigged sailboats . With two headsails set in front of your boat ‘s centerline but balanced proportionately around it, there’s less chance of being overpowered by strong gusts or unsteady winds compared to single-headsail rigs like sloops. This inherent stability allows for better control and reduces the risk of a sudden broach, which can be particularly crucial when sailing in harsh or unpredictable conditions.

Not only does the cutter setup provide superior handling, but it also enhances safety on the water. Since the staysail can easily be brought down or adjusted independently from the larger jib, sail changes are more manageable and less physically demanding for crew members. This flexibility is particularly vital during challenging weather conditions, as it minimizes time spent on deck in potentially dangerous situations .

Beyond its functional advantages, there’s an undeniable aesthetic appeal to cutter-rigged sailboats that captivates sailors and admirers alike. The imposing presence of multiple masts adorned with gracefully billowing sails creates an aura of classic beauty that pays homage to traditional sailing vessels of old. Whether cruising leisurely along coastlines or partaking in thrilling racing competitions, a cutter’s stylish design ensures you’ll turn heads wherever you go.

In conclusion, a cutter-rigged sailboat is a comprehensive embodiment of functionality, style, and adaptability on the water. With its distinct two-headsail setup providing excellent control across varying wind conditions, it stands out as an ideal choice for serious sailors seeking an enhanced sailing experience. From its versatility to stability and safety benefits – not to mention its timeless elegance – no wonder cutters remain cherished by seafaring enthusiasts worldwide who appreciate both tradition and innovation in their voyages.

2) Understanding the Cutter-Rigged Sailboat: Definition and Characteristics

Are you a sailing enthusiast looking to explore different types of sailboats? If so, then understanding the cutter-rigged sailboat is essential. This unique and versatile vessel has its own distinct features and characteristics that set it apart from other types of sailboats . So, let’s dive into the world of the cutter-rigged sailboat , exploring its definition and noteworthy qualities.

First, let’s start with the definition. A cutter rig is a specific type of sailing rig configuration typically found on smaller to medium-sized boats. Unlike other rigs such as sloops or ketches, which have only one headsail (the foresail), the cutter rig features multiple headsails.

The most prominent feature of a cutter rig is its dual headsails – a jib and staysail. The jib is the larger headsail located forward of the mast, while the staysail is positioned between the mast and forestay (the primary vertical support for the mast).

Why two headsails? Well, this setup provides incredible versatility and adaptability in various wind conditions. By utilizing both sails in combination or individually, a sailor can easily adjust their sail plan to maximize performance based on wind strength and direction.

Let’s talk about some remarkable characteristics that make the cutter rig stand out:

1. Upwind Performance: The presence of two headsails provides increased control when sailing upwind, allowing for better pointing ability into the wind. The staysail helps balance out the forces acting on the boat, reducing weather helm (the tendency of a boat to turn towards the wind) compared to other rig configurations .

2. Offshore Capabilities: Cutter rigs are renowned for their seaworthiness. With their ability to handle heavy weather conditions offshore, many serious cruisers prefer this rig type for long-distance voyages or bluewater sailing adventures .

3. Redundancy and Safety: Having two separate headsails not only enhances performance but also acts as a backup in case of damage or failure. If one headsail gets damaged, the sailor can simply drop it and continue sailing with the remaining sail. This redundancy is particularly useful during extended cruising or when sailing far from shore.

4. Versatility in Sailing Conditions: Cutter-rigged sailboats excel in a wide range of wind conditions, from light airs to strong winds. The ability to switch between different combinations of sails allows sailors to optimize their performance regardless of the prevailing weather conditions on their journey.

5. Ease of Handling: Despite having multiple sails, cutter rigs can be easily managed by a small crew or even single-handedly. The sail area is distributed across the two headsails, making them more manageable compared to larger single headsails found on sloops or ketches.

So there you have it – an introduction to understanding the cutter-rigged sailboat and its defining characteristics. From increased upwind performance to offshore capabilities and versatility in various weather conditions, this rig configuration offers a unique sailing experience that avid sailors find both thrilling and practical.

If you’re looking for a vessel that combines adaptability, safety, and ease of handling without compromising performance, then exploring the world of cutter-rigged sailboats might be your next exciting venture!

3) Step-by-Step Guide to Defining a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat

Welcome to our step-by-step guide on defining a cutter-rigged sailboat. If you’re new to the world of sailing or simply curious about this particular rigging style, you’ve come to the right place. Whether you’re envisioning sweeping journeys across the open seas or peaceful cruises along the coastline, understanding the intricacies of a cutter-rigged sailboat will equip you well for your adventures.

Step 1: Understanding the Basics Before delving into the specifics, let’s start with some fundamental knowledge. A cutter rig consists of multiple sails and is one of the most versatile options for sailboats . It typically features three sails: a foresail (the headsail), a mainsail, and a smaller third sail known as a staysail.

Step 2: Exploration and Considerations Now that we have grasped the general concept, it’s time to dive deeper into what makes a cutter rig unique. One key characteristic lies in its ability to handle various wind conditions exceptionally well due to its versatility. This adaptability ensures safety and efficiency even when facing unpredictable weather patterns during your sailing journeys.

Moreover, consider how different materials can affect performance while designing your ideal cutter-rigged boat. Sails made from modern materials such as polyester or nylon are durable and lightweight, enabling more efficient manipulation of wind power.

Step 3: Factors Influencing Cutter Rig Choices Defining your sailboat requires weighing several factors impacting your desired experience . First and foremost, think about your preferred cruising grounds – whether it’s serene lakes or challenging ocean waters – as this significantly influences sail arrangement decisions.

Furthermore, consider elements like mast height and placement; these variables directly impact how effectively the boat harnesses wind power for optimum performance. An experienced naval architect or yacht designer will be an invaluable resource when making these choices.

Step 4: Essential Equipment Next up is selecting essential equipment that complements your intended sailing lifestyle. When defining a cutter rig, it is crucial to invest in robust and reliable hardware to guarantee smooth sailing . Pay close attention to components such as winches, blocks, and furling systems, which all contribute to ease of handling and overall safety.

Step 5: Expert Advice Consulting with seasoned sailors or professionals within the sailing community can significantly enhance your understanding and decision-making process. Engaging in forums or seeking advice from experienced yacht brokers can provide valuable insights into different cutter rigs available on the market today.

This additional expertise ensures that you choose a cutter-rigged sailboat tailored specifically to your needs and desires while balancing practicality and performance.

Step 6: Balance Between Style and Functionality Ensuring your sailboat reflects your personal aesthetic preferences is also an essential aspect of defining a cutter rig . From sleek lines to elegant finishes, embrace the opportunity to infuse your unique style into the boat’s design without compromising its functionality.

Step 7: Maintenance and Upkeep Lastly, once you’ve defined your dream cutter-rigged sailboat , it’s important to consider maintenance requirements. Regular cleaning, inspection of equipment for wear and tear, as well as staying up-to-date with technological advancements will guarantee longevity and reliability throughout your sailing adventures .

Whether it’s chasing sunsets or conquering challenging waters, following this step-by-step guide will assist you in defining a cutter-rigged sailboat that fulfills all your nautical aspirations. With careful consideration of each component alongside expert input, you’ll be primed for unforgettable voyages while captivating fellow sailors with both the elegance and efficiency of your chosen rigging style.

4) Frequently Asked Questions about the Definition of a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat

Frequently Asked Questions about the Definition of a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat

When it comes to sailboats, there are numerous rigging options available, each with its own unique set of characteristics. One such design that has captivated the sailing community for generations is the cutter rig . Known for its versatility and performance capabilities, cutter-rigged sailboats have become a popular choice among experienced sailors. If you’re curious to learn more about this type of sailboat rig, we’ve compiled some frequently asked questions to demystify the definition of a cutter-rigged sailboat.

Q: What exactly is a cutter-rigged sailboat? A: A cutter rig refers to a specific arrangement of sails on a boat , consisting of two or more headsails and a mainsail. Unlike other rig configurations like sloops or ketches, where only one headsail is present in front of the mast, cutters feature multiple headsails set on separate forestays. The most common setup includes a staysail forward of the mast and a larger headsail (typically referred to as the genoa) on the foretriangle.

Q: Why would someone choose a cutter rig over other rig types ? A: One significant advantage of the cutter rig lies in its versatility and adaptability to various weather conditions . With two or more headsails onboard, sailors have greater control over their boat ‘s power and balance. The option to reef or furl both headsails independently allows for efficient sail area reduction during high winds while maintaining excellent maneuverability when under power alone. This makes cutters particularly appealing for long-distance cruising or offshore passages.

Q: Are there any disadvantages to choosing a cutter rig? A: Like any design choice, there are trade-offs associated with opting for a cutter-rigged sailboat. While offering enhanced flexibility compared to other rigs, cutters require additional hardware such as multiple forestays and halyards which may increase maintenance requirements. Additionally, the complex sail plan can require more crew effort and expertise to handle effectively, especially during maneuvers and sail changes. However, with proper training and experience, these challenges can be overcome.

Q: Can a cutter-rigged sailboat perform well in racing? A: While cutter rigs are not commonly found on the race circuit as they once were, that doesn’t mean they lack performance capabilities. Due to their ability to carry multiple headsails of varying sizes, cutters excel in heavy weather conditions where wind strength is typically higher. In races that encompass offshore or longer passages, cutters can often showcase their advantage over more limited-rigged vessels like sloops or Bermuda rigs.

Q: Are there any famous examples of cutter-rigged sailboats ? A: Yes! Some iconic examples of cutter-rigged sailboats include the historic Joshua Slocum’s Spray, which he sailed solo around the world in the late 19th century, and Eric Tabarly’s splendid Pen Duick series racing yachts. These vessels demonstrated the capabilities and enduring appeal of this rig type .

In conclusion, a cutter rig offers sailors an adaptable and versatile solution for their sailing needs. With its ability to handle various weather conditions while maintaining maneuverability and control under power alone, it’s no wonder why this rig configuration has stood the test of time. Although it requires some additional maintenance considerations and sailing proficiency compared to other options such as sloops or ketches, those who value performance and flexibility will find a cutter-rigged sailboat a worthy choice for both cruising adventures and competitive racing endeavors.

5) Exploring the Key Features of a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat: A Detailed Definition

In the world of sailing, there are a plethora of sailboat designs and rigging setups to choose from. Each configuration offers unique advantages and characteristics that cater to different sailing styles and conditions. One popular choice amongst avid sailors is the cutter-rigged sailboat.

What exactly is a cutter-rigged sailboat , you may ask? Well, let’s delve into this fascinating topic and explore the key features that make this rigging setup stand out.

At its core, a cutter-rigged sailboat is defined by its multiple headsails and specific mast placement. Unlike traditional sloop-rigged sailboats with just one headsail (the jib), cutters carry two headsails – the jib on the forestay and a smaller staysail on an inner stay called the second forestay. This additional headsail provides enhanced maneuverability, especially in heavier wind conditions or when sailing close to the wind.

The positioning of these sails allows for better balance and control. The jib acts as the primary driving force while the smaller staysail helps fine-tune and adjust sail trim for optimal performance in varying wind speeds. This configuration gives sailors greater flexibility and control over their vessel, making it easier to adapt to changing weather conditions or maneuver through tight spaces like crowded harbors or narrow channels.

One major advantage of a cutter rig is its versatility in handling different points of sail . Whether you’re beating upwind, reaching across open waters, or running downwind with strong winds at your back, a well-designed cutter rig can excel in all these scenarios. The ability to set various combinations of sails enables sailors to maximize their boat’s aerodynamic efficiency regardless of which way the wind blows.

In addition to its superb adaptability on different points of sail , another standout feature of a cutter rig is its reliability in heavy weather conditions. With two separate headsails instead of relying solely on one large genoa like many sloop rigs, a cutter rig offers increased sail area options without sacrificing safety. By reefing down and using the smaller staysail as the primary driving force, sailors can maintain control even in strong winds, reducing the risk of overpowering the boat.

Moreover, the presence of two forestays not only reinforces mast stability but also opens up possibilities for adding additional headsails or storm sails if needed. This further enhances a cutter-rigged sailboat’s versatility and adaptability to different sailing conditions, offering peace of mind to sailors heading out into more challenging waters.

It’s important to keep in mind that while cutter rigs come with numerous advantages, they may require slightly more effort and skill to manage compared to simpler rigging setups. The need for multiple sheets and halyards means more lines cluttering the deck, potentially leading to increased complexity when setting up or adjusting sails . However, with practice and experience, managing a cutter rig becomes second nature.

In conclusion, exploring the key features of a cutter-rigged sailboat reveals a versatile and reliable sailing configuration that appeals to seasoned sailors seeking enhanced maneuverability and adaptability on various points of sail. With its unique combination of two headsails and specific mast placement, this rigging setup offers both performance and safety in a wide range of conditions. So if you’re considering upgrading your current sloop rig or looking for a new sailboat altogether, don’t overlook the allure of a well-designed cutter rig – it just might be the perfect choice for your next sailing adventure!

6) Expert Insights: How to Define and Identify a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat

Title: Expert Insights: Mastering the Art of Defining and Identifying Cutter-Rigged Sailboats

Introduction: Ahoy, sailing enthusiasts ! Welcome to another exciting installment of our Expert Insights series. Today, we embark on a voyage delving into the intricacies of defining and identifying cutter-rigged sailboats. Whether you are a seasoned sailor or an aspiring seafarer, this comprehensive guide will equip you with the knowledge necessary to navigate the dazzling world of cutter rigs. So hoist your sails, batten down the hatches, and let’s set course for enlightenment!

What is a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat? Imagine an elegant vessel gracefully slicing through the water; that’s a cutter-rigged sailboat in all its glory. A cutter rig is characterized by having multiple foresails—a mainsail located closest to the mast, supplemented by two foresails mounted ahead called the jib and staysail. This configuration differentiates it from sloop rigs, where only one headsail (the jib) embellishes the mast.

1) The Power Behind Cutter Rigs: The secret to their popularity lies in versatility and performance. Cutter-rigged sailboats excel at various points of sail due to their flexible sail plan. While close-hauled (sailing as close to wind direction as possible), you can harness immense power by using both foresails simultaneously—balancing speed and maneuverability.

2) Benefits Beyond Mighty Winds: Cutter rigs not only capture more wind but also distribute it efficiently across multiple sails—enabling enhanced control during gusty conditions. These additional foresails provide options when experiencing changes in weather or sea states while cruising offshore or navigating congested harbors.

3) Identify with Ease: Distinguishing a cutter rig at first glance may seem perplexing, especially if you’re new to sailing terminology . However, one crucial telltale sign is evident—the presence of two headsails. The jib, commonly the largest fore-and-aft sail, unfurls ahead of the mast while the staysail—often smaller—is typically set on a forestay between the bow and mast.

4) Rigging Setup: Cutter-rigged sailboats possess a unique rigging setup to accommodate multiple foresails harmoniously. In addition to the mainmast, they typically feature an inner forestay reaching from the masthead to a point near or on the deck. This inner stay provides support for setting and controlling the staysail separately from the larger jib.

5) Sail Controls & Tactics: Understanding how to effectively control your cutter rig is key to mastering its potential. Utilize various lines and winches to haul in or release each sail independently, allowing for precise adjustments depending on wind conditions. For optimal performance, consider employing windward sheeting angles, fine-tuning sail twist, and applying proper reefing techniques when necessary.

Conclusion: Congratulations! You’ve successfully navigated through our expert insights on defining and identifying cutter-rigged sailboats with finesse. Armed with this newfound knowledge, you can confidently embark on your next sailing adventure or engage in enthusiastic conversations with fellow sailors about their awe-inspiring rigs . Remember, cutter rigs offer a combination of power, versatility, and charm that captivates both spectators and seasoned mariners alike. Fair winds and smooth seas await as you join the ranks of those who harness the magic of these remarkable vessels!

Yachting World

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Jzerro: The oceangoing Pacific proa

Helen Fretter
April 8, 2021

Jzerro is a Russell Brown-designed proa, which is being prepared for a 14,000-mile record bid from New York to San Francisco

The great Californian Gold Rush of the 1840s and 1850s saw over a quarter of a million people follow the sun to the west of the United States, each dreaming of making their fortunes.

The ‘49ers’, as the early migrants in the first wave of 1849 were known, mostly travelled by ship, sailing from New York to San Francisco westabout around Cape Horn . It was an arduous and dangerous journey, but over 500 vessels – from majestic clipper ships to hastily converted whaling boats – made the voyage in 1849 alone.

The route is as much a part of the American maritime heritage as the clipper tea routes are a part of Britain’s. The benchmark fastest sailing between the two cities was set by the 225ft three-masted clipper Flying Cloud , which sailed around in 89 days 8 hours in 1854, a time that was unbeaten for 135 years.

Since then over 200 record attempts have been made, in everything from trimarans to maxis, yet it has never been attempted in a single-handed proa. American sailor Ryan Finn is bidding to be the first to do so, solo and non-stop.

Pacific proa

Proas have been around since adventurous island dwellers first strung cloth atop a dug-out canoe, with early versions developed by Austronesian sailors for exploring the unknown southern seas of the Indo-Pacific some 7,000 years ago.

Made up of a single hull and second ama, they are light and fast, and simple to construct. Devotees of modern incarnations of the proa praise them for their speed under minimal sail area and their ability to absorb waves with less slamming and uneven loading than a conventional catamaran. On a close reach, Jzerro can easily pass boatspeeds of 17-18 knots.

Pacific proas always sail with the small ama to windward. Photo: 2Oceans1Rock

However, the geometry of a Pacific proa (ie with a small ama to windward) does present its challenges.

In order to be able to sail with the ama to windward on both port and starboard tacks, a proa must be symmetrical both fore and aft with two ‘bows’, two lifting rudders, and a rotating mast.

On a boat the size of Jzerro , which is 36ft long, accommodation and stowage is severely limited by the single hull, and cockpit protection almost nonexistent. Attempting to sail a proa around Cape Horn, against the prevailing winds, is an extreme challenge.

Ryan Finn at his fair weather helming position. Photo: 2Oceans1Rock

Ryan Finn says the idea of a proa adventure was what first inspired him. “The boat concept came before the route. I’ve been thinking about multihulls than can sail upwind without experiencing major structural issues, and that’s where I became aware of Russell Brown’s designs. I knew they had successfully travelled far and I realised a proa would solve a lot of the structural beam issues that big catamarans and trimarans have, since you’re not leaning on the leeward ama – the leeward ama is the main hull.”

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Inspired by sailors like Tom Follett, who raced his proa Cheers from Plymouth to Newport Rhode Island in the 1968 OSTAR, Finn was sold on the proa concept. He bought pioneering proa designer Brown’s own Jzerro , which Brown had sailed across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Finn has been working as a delivery skipper for many years and before that competed on the Mini Transat circuit. “There was no way I’m going to raise money to race in France, I’d already attempted to do that before,” he explains. “I can never compete with their budgets, so I thought I should stop trying to play their game and just do the kind of sailing that I want to do.

Aerial view of the symmetrical proa, showing its two bows, two rudders, and duplicate stays and fittings for flying foresails when the mast is rotated. Photo: 2Oceans1Rock

“The New York-San Francisco record was very difficult and very long, and it was available, because no-one has done it single-handed non-stop before so I thought I’d give it a shot.”

Single-handed record attempts at the route have been rare: in 1989 Philippe Monnet attempted it on a Shuttleworth-designed trimaran. Monnet had to stop and restart after hitting ice, but managed to complete the voyage in 81 days. The crewed record, meanwhile, was set by the 110ft catamaran Gitana 13 at 43 days in 2008.

Despite its metropolitan start and finish points, much of the 14,000-mile route is more akin to an ocean crossing. “A lot of people don’t realise how far to the east Brazil is, it’s way out there,” points out Finn. “So to clear the eastern point, you have to go really far offshore, almost like a transatlantic, more than halfway across the Atlantic to get around that point. Then there’s potential for a lot of coastal navigation around Patagonia, and in the Pacific, it should be pretty far offshore too.”

Solo sailing mods

Although Brown had sailed Jzerro double-handed across the Pacific, Finn needed to modify the boat for solo sailing. “The biggest thing was I needed new sails and I wanted the sail handling to be a lot different.

So I’ve moved a lot of chainplates for the headsails on both ends, and added medium roller furling sails on halyard locks,” recalls Finn.

The ‘off-duty’ rudder is lifted, here the ‘port tack rudder’ as Finn refers it. Photo: 2Oceans1Rock

Proas do not tack, instead proa sailors make a manoeuvre called ‘shunting’, which involves setting a new foresail, furling and lowering the old one, easing the main out to leeward, rotating the rig, resheeting the boom to the ‘new aft’ fitting, and raising and lowering a rudder on either end.

Finn says that the proa is not unstable during the process, however. “Because the mainsail is completely to leeward, just sort of flagging there, the boat is really settled when you’re shunting, it’s a good time to take a break – the boat parks and you can really stop.” Shunting is not, however, an easy manoeuvre to make with limited searoom.

Finn has opted for wind instruments on a static pole on the ama, rather than masthead units on the rotating rig, for simplicity. However, he points out: “Because you’re going forwards and backwards, you have to recalibrate the autopilot every time you tack. Everything has to flip 180°, so it’s kind of complicated. I’m getting used to it, but I don’t know how many proas there are sailing that have autopilots!”

The tillers use whip-staff steering principles and are mounted vertically in the small cockpit. Photo: 2Oceans1Rock

Another big element that needed improvement for the record attempt was shelter. “The boat is very, very wet because it’s very light, so there’s a lot of spray. I’ve created a dodger that I can tack from one end to the other that protects the cockpit pretty well,” explains Finn. When not required, the dodger can be lashed to the trampoline.

Back to basics

Initially New Orleans-based Finn hoped that his all-American endeavour would attract sponsorship, but when little was forthcoming he decided to push on with the record bid as a low budget project, cutting his own sails, and building custom components such as halyard locks himself.

Finn hopes to inspire others to realise that adventure sailing can be affordable. “I always wanted to prove that you don’t have to have millions of dollars for a boat that’s capable of setting an impressive record,” he says.

Accommodation on Jzerro is limited within the main hull and leeward pod that extends outboard – and although Jzerro ’s ply interior was beautifully crafted, Finn describes the sink as his sole luxury. Solar panels and a fuel cell were installed for power, with Iridium GO! for communications.

Interior is beautifully built in plywood but there’s not a lot of space. Photo: 2Oceans1Rock

Finn’s first attempt at the record began on 21 January 2021, but Jzerro sustained damage off the eastern seaboard, puncturing the forward edge of the leeward pod, and the attempt had to be aborted early on. Finn has returned Jzerro to Brown’s yard, where he’ll make repairs and hopes to resume his record bid.

“Having sailed over 10,000 miles on Jzerro , and in much more demanding conditions than I saw during this record attempt, the damage was a surprise, but also a good revelation for preparing to make another attempt,” explains Finn.

The biggest contributing factor leading up to this failure, he says, was how heavily loaded Jzerro was when he left New York, largely due to the volume of water he was carrying (he had no watermaker due to budget restrictions). Finn is now working on a major weight saving programme to reduce loads on the structure, also adding a watermaker and increasing power capacity.

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Type Of Sails: A Complete Guide

Table of Contents

If you are approaching sailing and sailboats from a very beginner’s perspective , then the concept of different kinds of sails can be a strange one. We often believe we see one kind of sailboat with one kind of sail, and our simple minds lead us to believe you are only meant to move them around, and you will get to where you need to go.

However, you would not have landed on this article if you did not suspect that there was more to sails and sailboats. So here, you can have a kind of in-depth, kind of summarized review of the different kinds of sails and the most popular sail and mast configurations out there.

It is also important to understand why there are so many different kinds of sails. When you are out on the water, different weather conditions can occur. Your sail acts as a motor of some sort, moving your sailboat forwards, but your sail is also highly dependent on the wind conditions around it. This is why having different kinds of sails can help you navigate your weather conditions and turn them to your own advantage while sailing.

Different sails also come with different danger levels in case of strong wind, so knowing what kinds you might need to watch out for is also extremely important. So, without further ado, let us get into it.

You may have heard of this one before or seen it portrayed in movies and TV shows. As the name suggests, the mainsail is the most popular kind of sail on any sailboat, and they are found behind the mast. They are also attached to the boom. Because they take up so much space on your sailboat, they are also one of the most important sails to take care of and keep an eye on.

Since the mainsail is such a large sail, it does not require too strong a wind to propel it forward , as its large surface area will easily catch a breeze. At the same time, the fact that it can be moved around by moving the boom makes it, so it is easy to steer. This makes it so that the mainsail is the most important sail on your sailboat.

Headsail/Jib

The headsail, or the jib, is likely the second most popular kind of sail found on sailboats. This is because it often accompanies the mainsail, the most popular kind. On all sailboats , the headsail is put at the front of the mast over the sailboat’s bow . It is always a smaller sail than the mainsail.

The fact that the headsail is smaller can be especially useful if you are caught in strong winds. In this situation, you likely do not want to use your mainsail (or trim it as much as possible) to move slower and not be thrown around by the winds. Smaller sails catch less wind, meaning they do not propel your boat as strongly as larger sails.

Having a good headsail can be an incredible safety measure, especially if the seas you are trying to sail are known to be wild and unpredictable.

You may have seen a genoa sail before if you have been around boats or have ever lived in a coastal town. This kind of sail is a large sail that you can attach to the front of the forestay (similarly to the headsail). This is a larger sail than the headsail and can even cover the mainsail either partially or completely. For this reason, the genoa also used to be called an “overlapping jib.”

You should use a genoa if you are sailing through either light or medium winds and if your sailboat is at a dead run point of sail (this means that the wind is coming directly from the rear. If you attempt to use a genoa sail in stronger winds , you might start going too fast and put yourself and your boat at risk since it is such a large sail. So, it is important to be careful .

The spinnaker is the most whimsical kind of sail since it is a large and colorful kind. They are also often symmetrical, which means they are more appropriate for reaching different points of sail, such as the running point of sail. They are lighter sails, and they do not cover the mast as the genoa sail does. You do not attach a spinnaker to the forestay and instead let it stretch out past the boat’s bow.

The large surface area of the spinnaker means that you have to be even more careful than with others on the kind of conditions you choose to use this sail in. If the winds are too strong, you could be putting yourself and your passengers at serious risk using this sail, so you should choose to use it only at times when the wind is low or in seas that are known for their low winds and tranquility.

As the name suggests, the gennaker sail mixes the genoa sail and the spinnaker sail. These kinds of sails are more recent inventions. They are as large as the spinnaker sail, but they are not symmetrical. Unlike the genoa or the headsail, they are also not meant to be attached to the forestay, like the spinnaker sail.

The usefulness of this sail is that if the winds change from a pure dead run to a reaching point of sail, then sailors do not have to resort to using a spinnaker from a genoa, instead of being able to take advantage of different winds while still using the same sail as they were before. This kind of sail is still only meant for lighter and milder winds , but there is more flexibility with the gennaker than the genoa and the spinnaker sails.

Popular Sail and Mast Configurations

There are many different ways to place the sails we have learned about in the above section. We have compiled a list of some of the most popular ones so you can understand how these sails can be used to make a sailboat move through the oceans.

A sloop is by far the most popular configuration. It features a single mast, double sail (the mainsail and the headsail), and mast configuration. The headsail is located from the forestay on the mast to the top of it. The type of headsail used can also vary from a genoa, a spinnaker, or a gennaker sail.

Fractional Rig Sloop

A fractional rig sloop also features a single mast with a double sail setup similar to a sloop. However, what makes the fractional rig sloop different is that the forestay does not reach the top of the mast. This means the headsail is constricted to a smaller amount of surface than on a regular sloop, making it so that your sailboat captures less wind and moves slower .

Cutters are interesting because they’re like a sloop but with a second forestay. This can be useful because it allows them to carry two headsails (a mainsail and one of the jibs). Cutters are good for cruising because they offer a range of wind options, giving you more time to get from place to place.

This is a less common mast configuration than previous others on this list. This is because a ketch features two masts. There is a larger mast fit for the mainsail and the headsail and a smaller mast between the mainmast and the stern (the rear) of the boat. This kind of mast configuration is more commonly found among Northern European freighters or fishing boats. This mast configuration is also called the mizzen mast.

A schooner mast configuration features two or more masts. This is similar to the previous configuration, the ketch. It also features multiple sails. While a ketch’s aft mast (also known as the rear mast) is higher than the forward mast, a schooner’s aft mast is shorter than the forward mast. A schooner can also have up to six masts (although two are the most common). These are the main differences between the two.

This one is quite similar to a ketch mast configuration (mentioned above). The only real difference between them is that the mizzen mast is put directly behind the sailboat’s rudder post in a yawl.

A cat sail will have one mast and one sail. The mast is put at the bow of the sailboat. This kind of mast configuration is often found on smaller boats, more specifically on dingy boats. Boats with the cat mast configuration are also often called catboats.

Final Verdict

Having the appropriate kind of sail on your sailboat is incredibly important. At the same time, being aware of the kinds of sails that there are and the kind of sail and mast configuration can make you into a more well-rounded and informed sailor. With that in mind, we hope that you leave this article feeling more confident in your skills when you are out at sea.

Boatsetter empowers people to explore with confidence by showing them a world of possibility on the water. Rent a boat, list your boat, or become a Boatsetter captain today.

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7 Different Types of Boat Sails

Posted on July 1, 2022

Close up photo of boat sailing during sunset.

Sails, like boat hulls and engines, have evolved. For example, the ships that traveled the oceans a little over a hundred years ago had multiple masts and may have had eight to ten sails. Likewise, as recreational boats have evolved, so too have many sail types used by wind-powered vessels.

Many of what was and what is are similar. However, early sailboats had different sails made from canvas. Likewise, the sails of today’s boats use space-age materials very different from the canvas sails of yesteryear.

The size and rig of a boat determine the type of sails it will use and the number it employs. For example, small boats like the Optimist pram, Laser, and sunfish use only one sail. While sloops use two sails, a main and jib, cutter-rigged sailboats have two headsails and a mainsail.

At the other end of the spectrum are ships such as the Golden Horizon with 35 sails that can drive it across the world’s oceans. Square sailboats still had mainsails, topsails, and jibs. However, they cannot sail close to the wind, which the gaff and Bermuda rigged boats could.

A square sailed ship can only get within 60 degrees of the direction of the wind. However, small Bermuda-rigged sailboats can get as close as forty degrees to the wind.

A boat that can sail higher (closer to the direction of the true wind) will reach its destination first. The reason is that it will not need as many tacks to make headway and close its distance to its goal.

Along with their diminished usefulness and the advent of steam, gas, and diesel-powered engines, the great sailing ships of yesteryear are mostly gone or in a floating museum somewhere.

However, in the 1960s and 1970s, many boats came to market. From dinghies to hundred-foot-long sailboats and vessels such as the Maltese Falcon and the Golden Horizon, the creativeness of naval architects still comes through with surprises.

Therefore, sailing is long from dead. On the contrary, even those who power huge ships across the world’s oceans have considered adding sails to reduce fuel usage on their travels.

1. Main and mizzen sails

A photo of boat sailing at the blue sea in the morning.

A mainsail is the largest sail of a boat , and you attach it to the back of the main mast. If you have a boat with two masts, the smaller of the two is the mizzenmast, which carries the mizzen sail. The mizzen is smaller than the main on boats that are Bermuda rigged.

However, gaff-rigged ketches and schooners may have a mizzen sail almost the same size as the mainsail.

Headsails (jibs) are set in front of the mast. You can have jibs for light air, medium air, and storms; of course, they all have different names that are often based on their use.

2. Gaff-rigged sailboats

A photo of boat sailing vessel on the ocean.

The boating industry changed slowly. When smaller yachts were being built in the early to middle 1950s, many privately owned sailboats still had gaff rigs, as do a few production boats today.

Catboats, which have a single mast and a single sail, are often gaff rigged. However, even today’s gaff-rigged boats use modern technology to make them more efficient than the boats that came before them.

What is a Gaff rigged boat?

Most modern sailboats use a mainsail called a Bermuda or Marconi sail. These sails are triangular and can be formed into a better foil shape than a gaff-rigged sail.

Gaff-rigged boats have a mainsail that hangs in the same place as modern sails. However, they are rectangular and have an upper boom (gaff) and a lower boom that holds the sail open and shapes it.

Although this type of sail and rig are very effective, the Marconi rig is easier to handle. It does not require a crew of husky sailors to raise and lower the sails.

3. Bermuda rigged sailboat — aka the Marconi sail.

A group photo of sailing ship yachts on the ocean.

The Marconi sail is a variant of the Bermuda rig that has been used in that country since the 1600s. The Marconi rigged sailboat has a similar sail and got its name during the 1899 America’s Cup Yacht race in New York City.

The rig got this name because it reminded sailors of Guglielmo Marconi’s radio antenna. The wires that held the masts upright looked much like those that held Marconi’s radio antennas in place that he used to broadcast the race results to people worldwide.

The Bermuda-rigged sail is easier to handle than a gaff-rigged sail and is lighter; one person can raise and lower this type of sail. This advantage allowed sailors to go venturing alone because the crew is optional, not mandatory, in a Bermuda-rigged boat.

Sailboats with only one mast are sloop-rigged if the boat has only one headsail and a Cutter if the boat has two headsails.

4. Square sails

Side view photo of sailing ship under full sail.

This type of sail was used on boats pre-1900 and afterward. Square sails have a top-mounted boom. This sail is trimmed by moving the two lower corners with lines leading to the deck. Unfortunately, square sails, and the boats that use them, are not as efficient or as easy to handle as today’s sailboat rigs.

However, the Maltese Falcon uses an automated square rig configuration with DynaRig technology, which is ingenious. With a length of 289 feet, the Maltese Falcon has a crew of 18. However, one person from the well-appointed bridge can control the automated sail system.

5. Mizzen sails

A photo of boat in a mizzen sails on the ocean with other boats.

Modern sailboats that carry mizzen sails include yawl and ketch rigged sailboats. A yawl-rigged boat has the mast stepped behind the rudder, and a ketch has the mast stepped in front of the rudderpost. The difference is minor; however, a ketch will carry a larger mizzen sail than a yawl, giving it more sail and power.

Other sailboats with two masts include the Schooner and the Brigantine (brig). However, on these rigs, the aft mast is taller than the foremast, or almost the same height.

6. Top sails

A photo of old style topsail boat at the sea.

Topsails are used on gaff-rigged sailboats and are set above the sail’s top gaff. They fill the upper triangular area above the main and add sail power. However, topsails aren’t limited to gaff-rigged boats.

Many Marconi rigged ketches and yawls will often set a topsail above the mainsail for more power, especially in light air situations.

7. Foresails have many different names and purposes.

A 3D illustration of a boat with foresails at the sea.

The foresail triangle is where all the action has been on the innovation of sails. However, the mainsails have changed over the years, but not like foresails.

The advent of full batten sails, and systems that raise and lower sails with the push of a button, has made sailing easier.

Foresails, on the other hand, (the sails in front of the mast) have evolved into many fantastic purposes.

They will continue to evolve as people push the edges of their speed on the water-powered purely by the wind.

Most modern sailboats have one, two, and sometimes three foresails attached to their roller furling systems. This configuration of a sailboat will let you take down one sail and unfurl another while on the fly.

Roller furling sails, from the jib to the mizzen, are wonderful innovations. Roller furling started on headsail and has moved to the entire rig on many boats. The addition of roller furling to main and mizzen sails has caught on and remained popular for a good reason.

A wet foredeck is scary, and the ability to furl and unfurl your sails from the cockpit or cabin makes sailing easy for almost everyone. In addition, these advances have allowed sailors of advanced years to stay on the water longer.

Self-tacking jib

Jibs are set in front of the mast and often have a boom. With a boom or not, self-tacking jibs eliminate a trip to the foredeck. When you change course, and if it is fitted with a boom, you have a lot of control over it. Also, most jibs fit within the fore triangle, eliminating them from being snagged on the rigging as you go from one heading to the next.

Jibs can be lightweight for light air, minimal, and very strong when the wind picks up. Storm jibs are heavily built and may not be much bigger than a small tablecloth. When you need to put this sail in action, you have reached the point of riding it out, whatever ‘it’ happens.

A photo of a boat sailing on a calm evening with beautiful sunset background.

Jib tops have a foot well above deck level, and are used in conjunction with a second jib, usually the staysail. You can also use a jib top with reachers and spinnakers.

Their high foot (the bottom of a sail) keeps them clear of the deck, leaving you free to work the foredeck.

Keeping a jib top sail flying when setting other sails can keep your boat from stalling while raising and lowering spinnakers, reachers, or a Code Zero.

Genoas are jibs, too.

The Genoa is also a headsail and is called a jib, too, because they are. However, some genoas are so big they will overlap your mainsail. Genoas are described by the amount of overlap of the mainsail it covers or its purpose, such as a genoa staysail.

They can have a 50 to 100 percent overlap of the mainsail, and you can use a genoa on sailboats in light to moderate air. Genoa staysails also remain inside the forestay, and you can use them with other genoas and Code Zero sails.

However, over the years, sailmakers have designed sails for any wind. As a result, there are very lightweight sails for days void of much wind and heavily made sails that can keep your boat stable in a blow.

Special foresails for sailboats

Side view photo of a white boat sailing on a blue ocean.

Cutter-rigged sailboats have two headsails. The sail set most forward is the Yankee jib, while the aft foresail is the staysail. Modern sailboats often have second and third halyards that give you many options when choosing what headsail to set.

These sailing innovations have effectively turned most modern sloops into cutter rigs, giving you a great deal of control over how you want and need to sail your boat.

The flying jib gets its name because it is much like a spinnaker, so it flies before the wind. So, naturally, they are set in front of the forestay, often on a fixed or retractable bowsprit.

You can use a flying jib with a spinnaker pole to help it keep its shape, especially in light air. The flying jib will give your sailboat a speed jump, whether you are running downwind or on a reach.

Another type of foresail, reachers, are very lightweight and are typically used in winds between one and 15 knots when close-hauled and driving into the wind. However, it is also suitable as a downwind sail in light air.

A photo of spinnaker sailing at the ocean.

This is the most easily recognized sail beside a typical main and jib. The spinnaker is the big ballooning sail that boats use to sail downwind. This point of sail is called ‘running’ and can take some boats to planing speeds.

Like spinnakers, Code Zero sails are exclusively for downwind sailing. Drifters and genoas can be used downwind also. However, they are not as efficient because they attach inside the fore triangle and can’t reach as far to the left or right when sailing before the wind.

Like spinnakers, Code Zeros are set outside the fore triangle, and you can set them with a spinnaker pole. The sail is designed to catch every puff of wind possible. Code Zero sails are designed to fill the gaps of the dedicated downwind spinnaker.

What’s a Boat with Two Masts Called: Two masted sailing boat types

Two-masted sailing boats will always have a special place in the hearts of many sailors. Many sailors consider two-masted sailing boats to be the most attractive and graceful of all sailing vessels. They have an obvious elegance, but what do you know about these two masted sailboats? Let’s find out!

Among the most important aspects are the fact that two-masted sailing boats offer greater sail balance, engineless sailing and more heavy weather options.

Even if the two masted sailboats are not so common, the sailing world has a few of them and what is more, they represent a proof of the evolution and improvement of sailing boats over time. There are an almost endless number of ways sailors have arranged their sails on boats over the years.

Two-masted sailing boats are classified according to the size and position of their masts.

There are different two-masted sailing boat types and two of the most popular are schooners and yawls.

The origins of schooner-rigged vessels are unknown, however there is evidence of them in paintings by Dutch maritime painters dating back to the early 17th century.

Schooners were developed by Northern European countries, while yawls are believed to be descended from the fishing boats of England.

Sailboats with two masts include yawls, ketches, schooners and brigs (known as brigantines). Yawls and ketches are both types of sloops, which means they have one mast, but the difference between them is that the yawl has a second mast stepped at the bow.

Ketches and Yawls have a lower mast, unlike schooners that have a taller aft mast, which is also known as mizzen. Ketch sailing boats have something specific: the aft mast is located in front of the rudder post.

The yawl’s mizzenmast serves as a counterbalance for the jib sails, so that it doesn’t have to be hung from the forestay (the rope running from the top of the mast down to the deck). They’re usually smaller than ketches and have less rigging because they don’t carry as many sails as a sloop with two masts.

Yawls are faster sailboats than schooners because they’re lighter, more balanced and easier to sail upwind. They can also go faster because their shorter sails catch more wind. But schooners have larger payloads, which means more people or cargo — an important consideration for long trips without resupply.

Schooners are two-masted sailing boats, but instead of having a jib sail like yawls, ketches and most sloops, schooners have a fore-and-aft spanker sail like a gaff sailboat. These two-masted sailboats have at least two masts, the foremast being slightly shorter than the main mast.

Schooners are larger than yawls, ketches and other sloops and weren’t used very much in modern times because they were more difficult to handle. They’re still used in racing competitions today.

Schooners have a longer bow portion than yawls. The mainsail is aft of the mast, and either one or two foresails are in front of it. In a schooner, these are triangular sails; in a yawl, they’re trapezoidal. Yawls have bowsprits — poles that extend beyond the bow for the jib and stay sail to be attached. Schooners have small bowsprits that can support jibs but not large sails.

The term ketch derives from the word catch, which hints to how it got its name in the 17th century. Ketches were initially intended to meet the specific requirements of offshore net fishing.

Ketch is a type of sailboat that features two masts and two sails, commonly used as a racing and cruising boat. The mainmast of this two-masted sailboat is typically taller than the mizzen mast (aft-mast). Its name derives from catch.

Taller masts allow you to use larger sails, so ketch boats are able to achieve better speeds than similar boats with only one mast. Some ketch designs feature a gaff rig, which is similar to a yawl, while others feature a yawl rig, which looks like a traditional sloop.

Ketch boats may look easy to sail but the slightest mistake can lead to disaster. You must be careful when operating this type of boat because it does not have as much stability as other boats, especially when you’re manoeuvring in tight quarters or windy conditions.

A ketch may also be a small recreational boat with only one head-sail in use. Many modern designs have moved away from sail altogether and are powered by engine, while others use both sails as well as engines depending on circumstance.

The brigantine was once a tiny ship that carried both oars and sails. It was a favorite of Mediterranean pirates.

A brigantine is a square-rigged sailing boat with two masts, with a fully square-rigged foremast and two sails on the mainmast.

The mainmast is stepped forward of the deck, making it possible to sail into the wind using a triangular headsail known as a jib. The brig’s foremast is shorter than the mainmast.

The name of this type of boat with 2 masts is derived from the Italian word “brigantino”, which means brigand.

Also, this two-masted sailing boat type was most commonly used for coastal trade and pirate hunting. The brigantine had an advantage over other ships of the time because it could sail against the wind using both sails, making it easier to travel against strong winds.

Faster and easier to manoeuvre than a sloop or schooner, it was used for piracy and espionage.

FAQ: Two-Masted Sailboats

What do you call a two-masted sailboat.

Two-masted sailboats are of several types: yawls, schooners, ketches or brigantines.

Why do some sailboats have two masts?

The vast majority of sailboats feature a mainsail and a jib. These two-masted sailboats provide several advantages in terms of speed and maneuverability. These two masts may be configured in a variety of ways.

The foresail directs air beyond the back of the mainsail, generating greater power from the wind. In order to help menouvering, the foresail can be backed. So, adding sails makes things simpler for bigger boats, making them easier to handle in heavy winds.

What is the difference between a ketch and a yawl sailboat?

Because they are lighter, more balanced, and easier to sail upwind, yawls are faster sailboats than schooners. They can also go at a faster speed since their shorter sails collect more wind. Schooners, on the other hand, have higher cargoes, which means more people or freight – a crucial consideration for extended journeys without replenishing.

What is a one masted sailboat?

It's a sailing boat having a single mast roughly one-third the length's aft of the bow. A sailboat with a single mast usually has one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail behind the mast.

What is a two-masted square rigger?

It's a brig with two square-rigged masts. A gaff-rigged fore-and-aft sail also called a "mizzen" is used in addition to jibs and staysails (stays'ls) before the foremast and staysails between the masts.

Types of Sailboats

Photo: Sandy Allen The schooner is possibly the stateliest and most magnificent looking vessel on the water (and what most think of when they hear the word sailboat). Schooners have fore (front) and aft (back) sails on two or more masts. The main thing that makes a schooner a schooner is that the aft mast (or mainmast) is the same height or taller than the foremast. Schooners with three masts are called tern schooners.

Photo: Kevin Murray/Wikipedia/CC License Sloops, smaller than schooners, are single-masted vessels with two sails. They have a foresail (typically a jib sail) and a mainsail. Sloops can also be called Bermuda rigs or Marconi rigs (or the Sloop John B if you’re the Beach Boys). Sloops are up to about 45 feet in length and make an excellent choice for beginning sailors.

Photo: Wikipedia A cutter is a sloop with one mast and two foresails and a mainsail. That additional sail between the headsail and mainsail is what makes a cutter a cutter (and not a sloop). Cutters are about 34 feet long. A cutter sailboat is not to be confused with a Coast Guard cutter, which looks more like a battleship than a pleasure boat (and one you won’t see bobbing about at a private boat dock rental or marina).

Photo: Wikipedia A ketch has two masts and three primary sails. There’s a main mast forward and a shorter mizzen sail (small and triangular) at the aft. The three sails make the boat more balanced and easier to control, especially for a solo sailor. The ketch is a great choice for long-distance sailing in rough water and heavy wind. Ketches are 40 feet or bigger.

Photo: D. Ramey Logan/Wikipedia/CC License A yawl is an old-time-style fishing sailboat with two masts. It’s similar to a ketch, but yawls have the mizzen mast positioned aft of the rudder post. On the ketch, the mizzen mast is ahead of the rudder post. The small mizzen sail keeps the vessel steady for heavy loads. Yawls are typically 50 feet in length.

Photo: Pixabay For stability, comfort and control, you can’t beat a catamaran. The two hulls can be a confusing factor, but cats do have sails (usually two, a mainsail and a genoa). With a spinnaker sail, they can go quite fast. Cats have one mast and are about 40 to 45 feet long. They’re especially popular for sailing in the Caribbean and other island areas. We think they’re one of the most unique looking vessels you’ll see docked at any boat slip for rent. Whether you’re " setting an open course for the virgin sea" (thanks, Styx), or " getting out of town on a boat going to the Southern islands" (like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) or just hanging out at the marina or boat dock rental, you’ll now know how to tell all those masts and sails apart. Happy sailing!

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Email This Page to a Friend Our Favorite Sailing Rig: The Cutter, by Lin and Larry Pardey

January 15, 2015

F or any sailing boat under 45 feet, nothing beats a properly-designed cutter rig, especially if you sail shorthanded. By properly designed I mean, having a staysail that is large enough to be used as the only headsail in winds above 20 knots. Thus, if your boat has a bowsprit, you can bring the jib in as soon as the sea begins to build, and continue sailing with a rig that’s all inboard—one that balances nicely when the mainsail has a reef or two in it. Your staysail should also be of sufficient size and far enough forward so you can tack in tight confines using only staysail and mainsail, even in relatively light winds. This makes it very easy to maneuver up to moorings or into marina berths because, when you’re finished with it, you can more easily douse a staysail than the big jib of a sloop.

L arry and I wrote a complete chapter in our book, Capable Cruiser about the advantages of the cutter rig and tips that can make the staysail your favorite sail. Last year we updated the information and have included it below.

T he following is excerpted and adapted from chapter 9 of Lin and Larry Pardey’s book Capable Cruiser .

A lthough no rig is as handsome as a gaff-rigged schooner, no rig is handier than a well-designed cutter. It gives you better performance to windward than a two-masted rig. You have less rigging to buy, and only one mast, one mast step, and one boom to build. A windvane for self-steering can be installed more easily on a cutter than on a ketch, yawl, or schooner, because the cutter’s boom usually doesn’t overhang the transom. The three smaller sails of a cutter are easier to handle and reef than the two larger sails on a sloop—all things being equal. Most important of all, the cutter rig gives you the most versatile sail to be found on a cruising boat: the staysail.

B ut to get the full potential from this special sail requires careful attention to details. The staysail on our cutter TALEISIN is heavily constructed of 8-ounce U.S. Dacron. It has two rows of reefs, and is set on a movable stay. This gives us a sail that can be used in a wide variety of wind conditions, from Force 2 all the way to storm Force 10. Alone on watch, it’s easy to keep the boat moving well by using a combination of the mainsail and the big jib, with the staysail set in between. The staysail can be simply dropped if the wind increases, or, conversely, we can hoist the staysail when the breeze drops.

T his easy increase of sail area improves our average passage times. Compare this with a single-headsail sloop rig. One headsail has to be taken off and another hauled up on deck and set up in its place whenever you want to change the sail area. Needless to say, everyone has to reduce sail area as the wind increases; but when we’re sailing on a boat with a single-headsail rig, we usually find ourselves putting off sail increases—especially when alone on watch at night. This reluctance to change up can easily cut 10 or 20 miles off a day’s run. Your staysail gives you flexibility. If you are reaching at top speed with the full rig as you come into the lee of the land, and you find you have to short-tack into an anchorage, the cutter gives you two quick and easy sail-change choices. You can drop either the staysail or the jib and tack easily into the bay. In gusty williwaw conditions—like those often found in the lee of steep headlands—or to work through narrow channels, we usually choose to drop the jib and use the staysail and main. But if we find we need more power once we get inside the anchorage, the jib is lying in the jib net, ready to go back up.

B ut it is in strong winds that the staysail really pays its keep. When you use your staysail with a reefed-down mainsail, it reduces your sail plan proportionately, so it becomes a smaller triangle with about the same fore-and-aft balance, or lead, as that that of the full rig. Compare this with a deeply-reefed, single-headsail sloop where the reefed sail area moves forward, usually causing a lee helm. A boat with lee helm has difficulty holding her bow up to the wind and seas, and therefore is a poor windward performer.

A bout 90 percent of our sailing on TALEISIN is done with three sails: the 7-ounce, 100 percent bonneted jib; the 8-ounce staysail with two rows of reefs; and the 8-ounce mainsail with three rows of reefs. (This gives us about the same total sail area that a sloop would have with a 135 percent genoa and a mainsail.) We depend greatly on our staysail. Unreefed, it can be a heavy-weather staysail; reefed once, it’s a storm staysail; and in a hard flog to windward, it works double-reefed as a spitfire staysail that is set with the triple-reefed main or, in extremely heavy conditions, in combination with our trysail. This may seem like a lot of reefs to some sailors. But we were once down to triple-reefed mainsail and single-reefed staysail on our old boat SERAFFYN as we reached into Malta on a storm-force northwesterly wind. I was thinking to myself, “Damn, I could use a trysail and another reef in the staysail just in case the wind increases, or I am headed and have to beat into Marsaxlokk Harbor.”

T he main reason our staysail is loose-footed, with no club or boom, is that it allows us to conveniently release the staysail stay and move it aft when we have to short-tack using the jib. Clearing away the staysail stay allows the jib to pass across the foredeck without hanging up on the staysail stay. This means that one person can tack the boat easily in light winds, freeing the other person to navigate and watch for coral heads or rocks. Another advantage of our boomless staysail is that it can overlap the mast a bit. This gives you a little more sail area and an increase in slot efficiency compared to the shorter-footed boomed staysail.

I f you eliminate the club on your staysail, you will save the expense of a sheet tackle, a traveler, a gooseneck, and the spar itself. It will also keep your foredeck clearer and thus make it easier to change sails and work the anchor windlass and ground tackle.

T he day sailor or coastal cruising sailor usually is in love with his or her self-tending staysail. It allows one to tack in and out of creeks, rivers, and narrow inlets with only the jibsheets to handle. But the boomless staysail works better for the open-water cruiser for whom short-tacking is not the norm. Our solution to the occasional short-tacking we have to do is, as mentioned above, to use one headsail at a time. We release the Hyfield lever holding the staysail stay, and bring that stay (with the sail still attached) back next to the mast to make tacking the jib easier. It is safe to sail with the staysail stay released until the wind breezes up and the mast begins to bend. Then it should be set up again. This is especially true if you are rail down and punching into a head sea.

T he question now is: If we had a sloop that met all our other cruising needs, would we go to the trouble and expense of converting it to a double-headsail (cutter) rig? I most definitely would add a staysail with a release lever if it met the following requirements: (a) It had a masthead rig which would allow for a long luff on both staysail and jib; (b) it had a generous distance between jibstay and mast that was at least as long as the main boom; (c) it had sufficient beam for the staysail to breathe easily in the open slot between mainsail and jib; and (d) the staysail could be designed so that it was at least 22 percent of the total working sail plan (i.e. mainsail, working jib, and staysail). Otherwise, it would not have sufficient drive to be used alone with the mainsail. With these parameters, a staysail could be added, and the resulting extra sail area forward might even reduce that common fault: a weather helm.

T he addition of the staysail stay would require a tang and halyard connection aloft, along with two intermediate supporting shrouds led to chainplates aft of the mast. On larger, more powerful boats (35 feet and over), running backstays would be required. The connection at the lower end of the staysail stay should attach securely to the stemhead on a boat with a bowsprit. Or, if the stay is attached to the middle of the foredeck, a rod or wire below decks should tension the stay to either a bulkhead or the forefoot. Add to this some deck fairleads and you’ve got quite a hardware bill, not to mention the cost of labor. But I think it is worthwhile if the boat you now own can gain the subtle but important advantages of a staysail.

T he staysail is the most versatile sail on our cutter, so it is subjected to a lot of wear and tear. We tend to watch it more closely than any other sail onboard, since it is the sail on which we will depend in extreme conditions. If you are intent on sailing offshore, I would suggest that once you notice signs of wear, have a spare staysail made, check to be sure it fits, and then stow it below so that you have two strong sails in reserve.

Here is a link where you can purchase Lin and Larry Pardey’s book Capable Cruiser .

5 Responses So Far to “Our Favorite Sailing Rig: The Cutter, by Lin and Larry Pardey”:

The racing version McGregor 65 had essentially the same set-up – cutter staysail on a removable (albeit hydraulic) cutter stay. It really increased the sail options available and was great for singlehanding with main and stay sail. Had a great sail alone one day with staysail and full 900 sq ft main at 17 knots for 5 hours. Also when crewed and running with a learning crew you could sail wing on wing with jib and stay sail poled out and main if too narly for 2400 sq ft spinnaker. I LOVE that rig.

I realize that this is an older article but still an excellent one. Thank-you, very much and I do agree with your conclusions, on the cutter rig. My first wooden boat was a double head sail sloop (1927 Eldridge-McGinnis design) effectively making it a cutter with a self tending staysail w/boom and running back-stays. A very versatile rig, indeed!

Love the cutter rig. Love the Staysail. Good article. Thanks

While, like so many others who have followed your tales and stories over the many, many years. This article explaining the benefits of cutter rigs, is as usual right on the button. I am as you may realise, a new subscriber. though, I have bought your disk and books and used them in while building now rebuilding mary t, a Hartly 21f 6Trailer sailer with a fixed ballast keel. She has been a nice little sea boat. Thanks for all the imfo they has given me. I shall be on the water again quite soon now.

Way, way, way more than just a favorite rig here! Thanks Lin & Larry for another excellent share.

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The Most Popular Types Of Sails On A Sailboat

A sloop-rigged sailboat typically features a mainsail, a headsail, and an additional light-wind sail, such as a spinnaker or Gennaker. The mainsail is rigged aft of the mast, while the headsail is attached to the forestay. The two most commonly used headsails are the Genoa and Jib.

The sails are vital parts of a sailboat since you obviously couldn’t sail without them! There are many different sails depending on the type of sailboat and its rig configuration, and we’ll walk through them together in this article.

The different types of sails on a sailboat

We can divide the selection of sails on a sailboat into three categories:

Standard sails

Light-wind sails

Storm sails

Each category serves different purposes depending on the vessel’s rig configuration and the sail’s functionality.

The standard sails

The standard sails usually form a sailboat’s basic sail plan and include :

The Mainsail
The Staysail
The Mizzen sail

These sails are the ones that are used most frequently on sloop, ketch, and cutter-rigged sailboats and are usually set up to be ready to use quickly.

Headsails are often rolled up on a furler, while the main and mizzen sail are stored on the boom or furled into the mast.

The halyards and sheets are kept within easy reach, making these sails the primary choice in most situations. Let’s dive further into each of them.

The mainsail is a triangular sail that flies behind the mast on top of the boom . Although it may not always be the largest sail on the vessel, we commonly refer to it as “the main.”

It is a vital sail, and keeping the sail shape trimmed properly on every point of sail is crucial for the stability and performance of the boat.

A Jib sail is a headsail that does not overlap the mainsail. It is typically between 100% and 115% of the foretriangle but can also be smaller. The foretriangle is the triangular area formed by the mast, deck, and forestay. The Jib is often used with a self-tacking system involving a sheet traveler in front of the mast.

This sail is often seen on newer boats with fractional rigs, which typically have a larger mainsail area than the headsail area. However, the Jib is versatile and also used in other configurations.

People often mix the terms Genoa and Jib. Many refer to any headsail as a Jib, which is incorrect. I personally prefer to use the correct terms to avoid confusion .

A Genoa sail resembles a large Jib but extends past the mast and overlaps the mainsail. Genoas are usually larger than 115% of the foretriangle , with sizes ranging from 120% to 150%. They are often used on vessels with masthead rigs and smaller mainsails but are also common on fractional rigs.

The Staysail is typically found on cutter rigs and is set on the inner forestay or cutter stay. It can be combined with other sails, such as a Jib, Genoa, or Yankee, or on its own in stronger winds.

The Staysail is also useful when sailing downwind, as it can be paired with a headsail and extended to opposite sides of the boat using a pole.

The Yankee sail resembles a Genoa and Jib but has a high-cut clew. This shape allows for improved airflow when used with another headsail. The Yankee is often used on cutter-rigged boats in combination with a staysail and is known for its versatility in different wind conditions.

Mizzen Sail

A mizzen sail is similar to the mainsail, only smaller . It is set on the aft mast of a boat with multiple masts, such as a ketch rig. The mizzen sail is usually used to provide balance and stability to the vessel and provides additional power when sailing downwind.

Another handy usage is to fly the mizzen at anchor to keep the bow up against waves and swell.

The light-wind sails are large, made of thin nylon, and typically shaped like a half-balloon. They are a type of headsails that are great when the winds are too light to fill the standard headsail and are often used when sailing downwind.

The four most commonly used light-wind sails are:

The Spinnaker
The Gennaker
The Code Zero
The Parasailor

They all provide excellent forward propulsion on a sailboat but usually require some extra rigging to be set.

Experienced cruisers love to use light-wind sails in nice weather, but they have a critical weakness to be aware of. These sails easily get overpowered when the wind increases, and I strongly advise being careful and observant of the wind conditions when flying them.

(Yes, I have managed to rip mine on one occasion due to getting overpowered, but that’s a different story…)

Let’s continue and take a closer look at each of the light wind sails.

A Spinnaker sail is a large, lightweight downwind sail used at deep angles between 120 and 180 degrees. It is symmetrical in shape with two clews and is often brightly colored.

The Spinnaker is set by using a pole to extend the sail’s clew to the vessel’s side. Then, a sheet is attached to the other clew and led back to the stern of the boat.

A Gennaker sail combines the characteristics of the Genoa and Spinnaker. It is made of nylon like the Spinnaker but is asymmetrical like a Genoa and rigged slightly differently. The tack is attached to the bow, and the clew has a sheet led aft to the cockpit. The Gennaker can be equipped with a snuffer to make it even easier to set up and take down.

It is popular among cruisers because it is simpler to use than a spinnaker and it doesn’t require a pole. The sail is effective at angles between 90 degrees and almost all the way down to 180 degrees, making it versatile for various light-wind conditions.

A Parasailor is similar to the Spinnaker in many aspects but has some distinct differences. It has a double-layer wing that inflates as the sail is filled with air, creating a batten-like effect pushing the leech out while providing lift to the bow.

The wing also helps to prevent the rolling movements you get with a Spinnaker and the collapsing of the leech that can occur with a Gennaker at deep angles.

This makes the parasailor effective at sailing angles between 70 and 180 degrees dead downwind. Parasailors can be set like a Gennaker when reaching or with a pole like the Spinnaker for running downwind.

A Code Zero sail combines some elements of the Genoa and Gennaker. Unlike the Gennaker, the Code Zero has a different shape, allowing it to be used while sailing upwind.

Another benefit is that it can be used with a furler which makes it easy to roll in and out. However, it can’t replace the Gennaker or Spinnaker entirely, as it is not effective at sailing angles deeper than 120 degrees.

If you see a big yacht with three forestay’s, the forward one probably holds a code zero sail. A bow spirit allows the ability to fly additional light wind sails as well!

Storm Sails

The storm sails consist of a small Mainsail and Jib in heavy-duty materials designed for rough conditions. These sails enable us to maintain speed and stability in the boat in severe weather too strong for the standard sails.

Storm sails are often brightly colored , such as red, orange, or yellow, to make them more visible at sea.

Storm Mainsail

A storm mainsail is used when the reefing setup doesn’t allow the standard mainsail area to be reduced enough to prevent overpowering. The sail can handle rough conditions and is excellent for maintaining stability.

A storm Jib is used when the headsail has been furled to the point where it is no longer effective. It is especially useful for sailboats rigged with a Genoa, as the Genoa gets inefficient when heavily reefed. As the storm Jib is smaller than the standard headsail, it also lowers the center of gravity, making the vessel heel less and become more stable.

Explaining the terms for the parts of a sail

Let us talk some more about sails. The goal is to go sailing, right?

Identifying the different parts of the sails is crucial to understanding which lines go where.

Let’s zoom in on a sail and break down the terms :

The head is the top corner of the sail . Most mainsails have a headboard or plate where the halyard is connected, while headsails use a metal ring. A halyard is a line we use to raise and lower sails with.

The leech is the aft part of a sail , located between the clew and head. We use a combination of the outhaul, main sheet, and traveler to trim and adjust the leech on the mainsail.

The headsail’s leech is trimmed by adjusting sheet tension and angle according to the wind speed and direction. A traveler is a track with a movable car or pulley system for adjusting the position and angle of a sheet, and most sailboats have one main traveler for the mainsail and car tracks along the side decks for the headsail.

The luff of a sail is the front part of the sail between the tack and head. On a mainsail, the luff runs vertically along the mast and along or close to the forestay on a headsail. Headsails are often equipped with luff foam to help maintain their shape when partially reefed on a furler.

Battens are slats or tubes inserted into pockets on the mainsail to help the sail maintain its shape and increase its lifespan . A traditional sail hoisted and lowered on the boom typically has horizontal battens. Vessels with in-mast furling can use vertical battens instead of horizontal ones.

A fully battened Mainsail has the battens run through the entire sail length from the luff to the leech.
A standard battened main sail has the battens along the sail’s leech.

Telltales are small ropes, bands, or flags attached to a sail to give an indication of the airflow around the sail. They help us understand how the wind affects the sail and allow us to fine-tune the trim for optimal performance. Telltales are usually found on the mainsail’s leech and in the front of the headsail’s leech.

The clew of a sail is the lower aft corner and where the outhaul is connected on a mainsail. Headsails have sheets attached to their clew for controlling and trimming the shape and tension.

The tack is the lower, forward corner of a sail. On a traditional Mainsail, the tack is attached to the Gooseneck, a hinge in front of the boom attached to the mast.

With in-mast furling, the tack is connected to the furling mechanism. This mechanism is used to roll the sail into the mast.

The headsails tack is connected to a furler drum on the forestay on most sailboats. Vessels using traditional hank-on headsails connect the tack to a fixed point on the bow.

The foot of the mainsail is the bottom portion of the sail between the clew and the tack. It is trimmed using the outhaul, a line attached to the clew, and used to adjust the tension on the foot of the sail. Some mainsail are configured loose-footed, and others are attach-footed.

The foot of the headsail is trimmed by adjusting the tension and angle of the sheets, which are the lines used to control the headsail’s clew. We use cars, or pulleys, to adjust the angle of the sheets and thus the trim of the headsail.

Traditional and less commonly seen sails

We’ve now looked at the most commonly used sails and walked through the different parts of them. But what about the less common ones? The art of sailing has a rich history, with some unique sail designs that we rarely see today.

Read on if you want to peek into some traditional sails, or skip straight to popular sail and mast configurations here.

Square sails

Square sails are rectangular and usually set across a ship’s mast, mostly seen on traditional square-rigged sailing ships and Viking ships. These sails are efficient for downwind sailing and are hung from horizontal spars called yards. Though not as agile as modern fore-and-aft sails when sailing upwind, they were central to naval exploration for centuries. Today, they’re mainly seen on traditional vessels and tall ships, symbolizing maritime heritage.

If you’ve been to Martinique in the summer, you may also have noticed the round skiff sailboats the local fishermen traditionally used for fishing in the Atlantic Ocean with their distinctive big squared sails. Tour de Martinique des Yoles Rondes is a popular yearly event where the locals race and show off these beautiful old boats with colorful sails!

A gaff sail is a traditional four-sided sail held up by a horizontal spar called the “gaff.” They are used on classic gaff-rigged sailboats and allow for a larger sail area with a shorter mast. Gaff-rigged boats were traditionally popular and usually carried 25% more sail area than the equivalent Bermudan rig, making them fast on a downwind run. The Gaff rig could also carry a topsail between the gaff and the mast.

However, they don’t sail well to windward, and modern designs have shifted towards triangular sails for better upwind performance.

Jib-headed topsail

The Jib-headed topsail is a small triangular sail used on gaff rigs and is set between the gaff and the top of the mast.

A lug sail is an angled, four-sided sail that attaches at a point on its top side, making it hang tilted. The sail is simple to use and often found on smaller or older boats. There are different types, like standing, dipping, and balance lugs, each hanging differently around the mast.

The lug sail evolved from the square sail to improve how close the vessels could sail into the wind. Because of their upwind performance, fishermen used them widely in Europe from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries.

Sprit sails

The spritsail, with its unique four-sided design, stands out thanks to a diagonal support called the “sprit.” It was traditionally popular in Thames sailing barges due to its ability to accommodate high-deck cargo. These days, it’s primarily found in smaller boats like the Optimist dinghy in a variant called “leg of mutton spritsail.”

The spritsail was also used in traditional wooden boats like the fearing version of the Oselvar wooden boat traditionally used in western Norway.

It is also commonly used by the indigenous Guna Yala tribes in Panama in their dugout Ulu’s up to this day. We saw plenty of them when we cruised along the coast, and some of them approached us to sell us their delicious catch of the day!

Lateen sails

A lateen sail is a triangular sail set on a long spar angled on the mast. It was originally popular in the Mediterranean and on Arab shows, and its design enhanced maneuverability and played a crucial role in historic sea exploration.

The lateen sail was used on lateen rigs, the predecessor to the Bermuda rig – one of today’s most commonly used rigs!

Which brings us to the following topic:

Popular sail and mast configurations

There are many different rigs and sail configurations between sailing vessels. From the old-school square rigs to schooners, gaff rigs, and more. However, this article will focus on the three most popular rigs seen on modern sailboats:

The Bermuda Sloop Rig
The Cutter Rig
The Ketch Rig

The three rigs have similarities and differences between their sail and mast configurations. We’ll walk through each of them to understand how they utilize their different types of sail.

If you want to learn more about other rigs, take a look here .

Bermuda Sloop Rig

The Bermuda sloop rig is the most common rig on modern vessels. It is characterized by a single mast, a triangular mainsail, and a headsail. This rig is named after the Bermuda Islands, where it was developed in the 17th century.

Some of the key features of the Bermuda sloop rig:

The mast is typically tall and raked, which allows for a large sail area and excellent stabilit y.
The mainsail is attached to the mast and boom. It is usually combined with a single headsail at the front of the boat, making it powerful and easy to sail.
The Sloop is usually equipped with a masthead or fractional rig and flies a Jib or Genoa as its primary headsail.

The Bermuda Sloop rig is known for its simplicity, is often used for racing and cruising, and is popular among sailors worldwide.

The cutter rig is very similar to the sloop rig. The significant difference is that it has a single mast and two headsails – a Staysail and a Yankee. The cutter rig is known for its versatility due to the multiple options in sail plans and the double headsail setup.

Some key aspects that separate the Cutter from the Sloop:

The rig is often more robust than its Sloop sister because of the additional cutter stay and running backstays.
The mast is located closer to the center of the boat.
The Cutter has a staysail on the inner forestay and a Yankee sail on the outer. The sails can be used in combination with each other or independently.
Tacking the headsail between the forestay and cutter stay is more involved than on a sloop.
The Cutter rig has two similar variations: the Slutter rig and the Solent rig.

Like the Sloop, the Cutter rig is relatively easy to operate. Still, the additional headsail and rigging make it costlier to maintain. It is also less suitable for racing than the Sloop, but the added versatility helps in different weather conditions and makes it an excellent choice for cruisers.

The ketch rig is also similar to the Sloop but has an additional mizzen mast placed further aft of the main mast. Another mast gives it the advantage of even higher versatility in sail plans. The ketch typically uses three sails. The mizzen sail, a mainsail, and a headsail. The mizzen mast also allows it to fly a second light-wind sail.

Here are a few more distinctions of the ketch rig:

The ketch typically carries a smaller mainsail than a similarly sized sloop and a smaller mizzen sail.
A small mizzen and a medium mainsail are easier to handle than one large mainsail.
The additional mizzen sail makes the vessel easy to balance and gives extra stability downwind.
The ketch usually doesn’t point as close to the wind as the Sloop and Cutter.

The headsail setup on a ketch is generally the same as for the Sloop. But the ketch can also be rigged as a cutter ketch, which gives it the benefits of the cutter rig! The tradeoff with a cutter-rigged ketch is the higher complexity and additional rigging, hardware, and sails required.

Final words

Well done, you now have a good grasp of the most common sails and their strengths. We have discussed a few rigs and how they utilize different kinds of sails in various sail plans. Remember that more sail types, other rigs, and even more variations are available. It is a complex topic, but this guide covers the basics and gives you a great starting point.

If you still have questions, look below at the FAQ, or leave me a comment. I’m more than happy to help you out!

A sailboat is only as good as its sails, and sails need wind to work. The next logical step is learning how the wind works when we sail and practicing some wind awareness! Head to the following guide to continue your research: Learn The Difference Between True And Apparent Wind Speed.

FAQ: The Different Types of Sails On A Sailboat

What is the foretriangle on a sailboat.

The foretriangle on a sailboat refers to the triangular area formed between the mast, forestay, and deck. If you want to order a new headsail, for example, you’ll have to measure and supply the sailmaker with these details.

What is the difference between a loose-footed and attached-footed mainsail?

A loose-footed mainsail is attached to the boom only at its corners, leaving the rest of the sail’s bottom edge free. An attached-footed mainsail, on the other hand, is secured to the boom along its entire length. The main difference lies in how the bottom of the sail connects to the boom, with the loose-footed design offering more adjustability in the sail shape.

What is a high-cut clew on a sail?

A high-cut clew refers to the design of a foresail, such as a jib or genoa, where the back lower corner (the clew) is raised or “cut” higher above the deck compared to standard designs. This design allows for better visibility beneath the sail and makes it easier to sail over waves without the sail touching the water, which is especially beneficial for offshore or blue-water cruising. Very high-cut clews are commonly seen on yankee sails on cutter-rigged sailboats.

What is luff foam on a sail?

Luff foam is a padded strip sewn into the forward edge of roller furling sails. It ensures the sail is appropriately shaped when partially rolled up, especially in strong winds. This foam not only helps with sail performance but also protects the sail when it’s furled.

What are the most common sails?

The sloop rig sailboat is the most common and usually features a mainsail, a headsail, and an additional light-wind sail, such as a spinnaker or Gennaker.

What are the different types of sails?

There are several different types of sails, and we can divide the most common into three categories:

The standard sails:

Mizzen sail

The light-wind sails

The storm sails:

Storm mainsail
Storm jib

What is a spinnaker sail?

A Spinnaker sail is a large, lightweight downwind sail used at deep angles between 120 and 180 degrees.

What is a Jib sail?

A Jib sail is a headsail that does not overlap the mainsail and is set on the forestay. The Jib can also be set up with a self-tacking system, making it very effective when sailing into the wind.

Is Genoa sail the same as a jib?

People often mix the terms Genoa and Jib. The Genoa is different from a Jib sail as it is larger and overlaps the mainsail, whereas the Jib is smaller and does not overlap the mainsail.

What is a Genoa sail?

A Genoa is a headsail larger than the Jib extending past the mast and overlapping the mainsail. The advantage over the Jib is the larger sail area, making it more effective when sailing off the wind.

How many types of sail plans are there?

Sail plans refer to the configuration and arrangement of sails on a boat or ship. While there are countless customizations and variations, the three most common sail plans are:

Sloop: Characterized by a single mast, a triangular mainsail, and a headsail.

Cutter: Similar to a sloop but has a single mast and carries two or more headsails.

Ketch: Features two masts, with the aft mast (called the mizzen) shorter than the main mast.

What is a Mainsail?

The mainsail is a triangular sail that flies behind the mast on top of the boom.

What is a Gennaker?

A gennaker is basically an asymmetrical spinnaker. A hybrid sail that combines the characteristics of a Genoa and a Spinnaker, designed for sailing off the wind and often used in light to moderate wind conditions.

What is a Storm Jib?

A storm jib is a small, heavy-duty sail used in strong winds or stormy conditions. It is commonly used when the headsail has been furled to the point where it is no longer effective.

What factors determine the type of sail to be used?

The type of sail to be used depends on various factors such as wind conditions, points of sail, sailboat size , and sailing experience. It’s smart to choose the appropriate sail for optimal performance. A Jib, for example, will be more effective than a Genoa while sailing to windward, and vice versa.

How do sails affect the performance of a sailboat?

Sails are the engine of a sailboat. Their design, size, and trim influence the boat’s speed, direction, and stability. Properly adjusted sails capture wind efficiently, allowing the boat to move faster and in the desired direction.

The balance and condition of the sails also impact comfort and safety, with well-maintained sails ensuring optimal performance. The sails are essential in determining how a sailboat performs in various wind conditions.

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Skipper, Electrician and ROV Pilot

Robin is the founder and owner of Sailing Ellidah and has been living on his sailboat since 2019. He is currently on a journey to sail around the world and is passionate about writing his story and helpful content to inspire others who share his interest in sailing.

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Different Sail Types

It is perhaps worth noting that a sailboat is only as good as its sails. The very heart of sailing comes in capturing the wind using artfully trimmed sails and turning that into motion. . Ask any good sailor and he'll tell you that knowing how and when to trim the sails efficiently will not only improve the overall performance of your boat but will elevate your sailing experience. In short, sails are the driving force of sailboats.

As such, it's only natural that you should know the different types of sails and how they work. Let's first highlight different sail types before going into the details.

Jib - triangular staysail
Spinnaker - huge balloon-shaped downwind sail for light airs
Genoa - huge jib that overlaps the mainsail
Gennaker - a combination of a spinnaker and genoa
Code zero - reaching genoa for light air
Windseeker - tall, narrow, high-clewed, and lightweight jib
Drifter - versatile light air genoa made from particularly lightweight cloth
Storm jib - a smaller jib meant for stormy conditions
Trysail - This is a smaller front-and-aft sail for heavy weather

The mainsail is the principal sail on a boat. It's generally set aft of the mainmast. Working together with the jib, the mainsail is designed to create the lift that drives the sailboat windward. That being said, the mainsail is a very powerful component that must always be kept under control.

As the largest sail, and the geometric center of effort on the boat, the mainsail is tasked with capturing the bulk of the wind that's required to propel the sailboat. The foot, the term for the bottom of any sail, secures to the boom, which allows you to trim the sail to your heading. The luff, the leading edge of the sail, is attached to the mast. An idealized mainsail would be able to swing through trim range of 180°, the full semi-circle aft of the mast, though in reality, most larger boats don’t support this full range of motion, as a fully eased sail can occasionally be unstable in heavy breeze.

. As fully controlling the shape of the mainsail is crucial to sailing performance, there are many different basic mainsail configurations. For instance, you can get a full-batten mainsail, a regular mainsail with short battens, or a two-plus-two mainsail with two full-length battens. Hyper-high performance boats have even begun experimenting with winged sails which are essentially trimmable airplane wings! Moreover, there are numerous sail controls that change the shape by pulling at different points on the sail, boom, or mast. Reefing, for instance, allows you to shorten the sail vertically, reducing the amount of sail area when the boat is overpowered.

Features of a Mainsail

Several features will affect how a particular sail works and performs. Some features will, of course, affect the cost of the sail while others may affect its longevity. All in all, it's essential to decide the type of mainsail that's right for you and your sailing application.

Sail Battens, the Roach, and the Leech

The most difficult part of the sail to control, but also the most important, are the areas we refer to as the leech and the roach. The roach is the part of the sail that extends backwards past the shortest line between the clew, at the end of the boom, and the top of the mast. It makes up roughly the back third of the sail. The leech is the trailing edge of the sail, the backmost curve of the roach. Together, these two components control the flow of the air off the back of the sail, which greatly affects the overall sail performance. If the air stalls off the backside of the sail, you will find a great loss in performance. Many sail controls, including the boom vang, backstay, main halyard, and even the cunningham, to name a few, focus on keeping this curve perfect.

As for parts of the sail itself, battens control the overall horizontal shape of the sail. Battens are typically made from fiberglass or wood and are built into batten pockets. They're meant to offer support and tension to maintain the sail shape Depending on the sail technology you want to use, you may find that full battens, which extend from luff to leech, or short battens, just on the trailing edge, are the way to go. Fully battened sails tend to be more expensive, but also higher performance.

Fully Battened Mainsails

They're generally popular on racing multihulls as they give you a nice solid sail shape which is crucial at high speeds. In cruising sailboats , fully battened mainsails have a few benefits such as:

They prevent the mainsail from ragging. This extends the life of the sail, and makes maneuvers and trimming easier for the crew.
It provides shape and lift in light-air conditions where short-battened mainsails would collapse.

On the other hand, fully-battened mainsails are often heavier, made out of thicker material, and can chafe against the standing rigging with more force when sailing off the wind.

Short Battens

On the other hand, you can choose a mainsail design that relies mostly on short battens, towards the leech of the sail. This tends to work for lighter cloth sails, as the breeze, the headsail, and the rigging help to shape the sail simply by the tension of the rig and the flow of the wind. The battens on the leech help to preserve the shape of the sail in the crucial area where the air is flowing off the back of the sail, keeping you from stalling out the entire rig.

The only potential downside is that these short battens deal with a little bit of chafe and tension in their pockets, and the sail cloth around these areas ought to be reinforced. If your sails do not have sufficient reinforcement here, or you run into any issues related to batten chafe, a good sail maker should be able to help you extend the life of your sails for much less than the price of a new set.

How to Hoist the Mainsail

Here's how to hoist the mainsail, assuming that it relies on a slab reefing system and lazy jacks and doesn't have an in-mast or in-boom furling system.

‍Maintain enough speed for steeragewhile heading up into the wind
Slacken the mainsheet, boom vang, and cunningham
Make sure that the lazy jacks do not catch the ends on the battens by pulling the lazy jacks forward.
Ensure that the reefing runs are free to run and the proper reefs are set if necessary.
Raise the halyard as far as you can depending on pre-set reefs.
Tension the halyard to a point where a crease begins to form along the front edge
Re-set the lazy jacks
Trim the mainsail properly while heading off to your desired course

So what's Right for You?

Your mainsail will depend on how you like sailing your boat and what you expect in terms of convenience and performance. That being said, first consult the options that the boatbuilder or sailmakers suggest for your rig. When choosing among the various options, consider what you want from the sail, how you like to sail, and how much you're willing to spend on the mainsail.

The headsail is principally the front sail in a fore-and-aft rig. They're commonly triangular and are attached to or serve as the boat’s forestay. They include a jib and a genoa.

A jib is a triangular sail that is set ahead of the foremost sail. For large boats, the roto-furling jib has become a common and convenient way to rig and store the jib. Often working in shifts with spinnakers, jibs are the main type of headsails on modern sailboats. Jibs take advantage of Bournoulli’s Principle to break the incoming breeze for the mainsail, greatly increasing the speed and point of any boat. By breaking the incoming wind and channeling it through what we call the ‘slot,’ the horizontal gap between the leech of the jib and the luff of the mainsail, the jib drastically increases the efficiency of your mainsail. It additionally balances the helm on your rudder by pulling the bow down, as the mainsail tends to pull the stern down. .

The main aim of the jib is to increase the sail area for a given mast size. It improves the aerodynamics of the mainsails so that your sailboat can catch more wind and thereby sail faster, especially in light air

Using Jibs on Modern Sailboats

In the modern contexts, jib’s mainly serve increase the performance and overall stability of the mainsail. The jib can also reduce the turbulence of the mainsail on the leeward side.

On Traditional Vessels

Traditional vessels such as schooners have about three jibs. The topmast carried a jib topsail, the main foresail is called the jib, while the innermost jib is known as the staysail. The first two were employed almost exclusively by clipper ships.

How to Rig the Jibs

There are three basic ways to rig the jib.

Track Sheets - A relatively modern approach to the self-tacking jib, this entails placing all the trimming hardware on a sliding track forward of the mast. This means that on each tack, the hardware slides from one side of the boat to the other. This alleviates the need to switch sheets and preserves the trim angle on both sides, though it can be finnicky and introduce friction.

Sheet up the Mast - This is a very popular approach and for a good reason. Hoist the jib sheet up the mast high enough to ensure that there's the right tension through the tack. Whether internally or externally, the sheet returnsto the deck and then back to the cockpit just like the rest of the mast baselines. The fact the hardware doesn't move through the tacks is essential in reducing friction.

Sheet Forward - This method revolves around ensuring that the jib sheet stays under constant pressure so that it does not move through the blocks in the tacks. This is possible if the through-deck block is extremely close to the jib tack. Your only challenge will only be to return the sheet to the cockpit. This is, however, quite challenging and can cause significant friction.

Dual Sheeting - The traditional method, especially on smaller dinghies, though it is not self-tacking. This requires a two ended or two separate sheet system, where one sheet runs to a block on starboard, and the other to port. Whenever you tack or gybe, this means you have to switch which sheet is active and which is slack, which is ok for well crewed boats, but a potential issue on under-crewed boats.

Another important headsail, a genoa is essentially a large jib that usually overlaps the mainsail or extends past the mast, especially when viewed from the other side. In the past, a genoa was known as the overlapping jib and is technically used on twin-mast boats and single-mast sloops such as ketches and yawls. A genoa has a large surface area, which is integral in increasing the speed of the vessel both in moderate and light winds.

Genoas are generally characterized by the percentage they cover. In most cases, sail racing classes stipulate the limit of a genoa size. In other words, genoas are usually classified by coverage.

Top-quality genoa trim is of great importance, especially if the wind is forward of the beam. This is because the wind will first pass over the genoa before the mainsail. As such, a wrongly sheeted genoa can erroneously direct the wind over the mainsail,spelling doom to your sailing escapades. While you can perfectly adjust the shape of a genoa using the mast rake, halyard tension, sheet tension, genoa car positioning, and backstay tension, furling and unfurling a genoa can be very challenging, especially in higher winds.

That being said, here are the crucial steps to always keep in mind.

Unload and ease the loaded genoa sheet by going to a broad reach
Do not use the winch; just pull on the furling line
Keep a very small amount of pressure or tension on the loaded genoa sheet
Secure the furling line and tighten the genoa sheets
Get on the proper point of sail
Have the crew help you and release the lazy genoa sheets
Maintain a small tension while easing out the furling line
Pull-on a loaded genoa sheet
Close or cleat off the rope clutch when the genoa is unfurled
Trim the genoa

To this end, it's important to note that genoas are popular in some racing classes. This is because they only categorize genoas based on the fore-triangle area covered, which essentially allows a genoa to significantly increase the actual sail area. On the contrary, keep in mind that tacking a genoa is quite a bit harder than a jib, as the overlapping area can get tangled with the mast and shrouds. It's, therefore, important to make sure that the genoa is carefully tended, particularly when tacking.

Downwind Sails

Modern sailboats are a lot easier to maneuver thanks to the fore-and-aft rig. Unfortunately, when sailing downwind they catch less wind, and downwind sails are a great way of reducing this problem. They include the spinnaker and the gennaker.

A spinnaker will, without a doubt, increase your sailing enjoyment. But why are they often buried in the cabin of cruising boats? Well, the first few attempts to rig and set a spinnaker can be difficult without enough help and guidance. Provided a solid background, however, spinnakers are quite straightforward and easy to use and handle with teamwork and enough practice. More importantly, spinnakers can bring a light wind passage to life and can save your engine.

Spinnakers are purposely designed for sailing off the wind; they fill with wind and balloon out in front of your sailboat. Structured with a lightweight fabric such as nylon, the spinnaker is also known as a kite or chute, as they look like parachutes both in structure and appearance.

A perfectly designed spinnaker should have taut leading edges when filled. This mitigates the risk of lifting and collapsing. A spinnaker should have a smooth curve when filled and devoid of depressions and bubbles that might be caused by the inconsistent stretching of the fabric. The idea here is that anything other than a smooth curve may reduce the lift and thereby reduce performance.

Types of Spinnakers

There are two main types of spinnakers: symmetric spinnakers and asymmetric spinnakers.

Asymmetric Spinnakers

Flown from a spinnaker pole or bowsprit fitted to the bow of the boat, asymmetric spinnakers resemble large jibs and have been around since the 19th century. The concept of asymmetric spinnaker revolves around attaching the tack of the spinnaker at the bow and pulling it around during a gybe.

Asymmetric spinnakers have two sheets just like a jib., These sheets are attached at the clew and never interact directly with the spinnaker pole. This is because the other corner of the spinnaker is fixed to the bowsprit. The asymmetric spinnaker works when you pull in one sheet while releasing the other. This makes it a lot easier to gybe but is less suited to sailing directly downwind. There is the loophole of having the asymmetric spinnaker gybed to the side opposite of the boom, so that the boat is sailing ‘wing-on-wing,’ though this is a more advanced maneuver, generally reserved for certain conditions and tactical racing situations.

On the contrary, the asymmetric spinnaker is perfect for fast planing dinghies. This is because such vessels have speeds that generate apparent wind forward. Because asymmetrics, by nature, prefer to sail shallower downwind angles, this apparent wind at high speeds makes the boat think that it is sailing higher than it really is, allowing you to drive a little lower off the breeze than normal. . In essence, the asymmetric spinnaker is vital if you're looking for easy handling.

Symmetric Spinnakers

Symmetric spinnakers are a classic sail type that has been used for centuries for controlling boats by lines known as a guy and a sheet. The guy, which is a windward line, is attached to the tack of the sail and stabilized by a spinnaker pole. The sheet, which is the leeward line, is attached to the clew of the spinnaker and is essential in controlling the shape of the spinnaker sail.

When set correctly, the leading edges of the symmetric spinnaker should be almost parallel to the wind. This is to ensure that the airflow over the leading edge remains attached. Generally, the spinnaker pole should be at the right angles to the apparent wind and requires a lot of care when packing.

The main disadvantage of this rig is the need to gybe the spinnaker pole whenever you gybe the boat. This is a complicated maneuver, and is one of the most common places for spinnakers to rip or get twisted. If, however, you can master this maneuver, you can sail at almost any angle downwind!

How to Use Spinnaker Effectively

If you decide to include the spinnakers to your sailboat, the sailmaker will want to know the type of boat you have, what kind of sailing you do, and where you sail. As such, the spinnaker that you end up with should be an excellent and all-round sail and should perform effectively off the breeze

The type of boat and where you'll be sailing will hugely influence the weight of your spinnaker cloth. In most cases, cruising spinnakers should be very light, so if you've decided to buy a spinnaker, make sure that it's designed per the type of your sailboat and where you will be sailing. Again, you can choose to go for something lighter and easier to set if you'll be sailing alone or with kids who are too young to help.

Setting up Spinnakers

One of the main reasons why sailors distrust spinnakers is because they don't know how to set them up. That being said, a perfectly working spinnaker starts with how you set it up and this revolves around how you carefully pack it and properly hook it up. You can do this by running the luff tapes and ensuring that the sails are not twisted when packed into the bag. If you are using large spinnakers, the best thing to do is make sure that they're set in stops to prevent the spinnakers from filling up with air before you even hoist them fully.

But even with that, you cannot fully set the spinnaker while sailing upwind. Make sure to bear away and have your pole ready to go as you turn downwind. You should then bear away to a reach before hoisting. Just don't hoist the spinnakers from the bow as this can move the weight of the crew and equipment forward.

Used when sailing downwind, a gennaker is asymmetric sail somewhere between a genoa and a spinnaker. It sets itself apart because it gennaker is a free-flying asymmetric spinnaker but it is tacked to the bowsprit like the jib.

Let's put it into perspective. Even though the genoa is a great sail for racing and cruising, sailors realized that it was too small to be used in a race or for downwind sail and this is the main reason why the spinnaker was invented. While the spinnakers are large sails that can be used for downwind sail, they are quite difficult to handle especially if you're sailing shorthanded. As such, this is how a gennaker came to be: it gives you the best of both worlds.

Gennakers are stable and easy to fly and will add to your enjoyment and downwind performance.

The Shape of a Gennaker

As we've just noted, the gennaker is asymmetrical. It doesn't attach to the forestay like the genoa but has a permanent fitting from the mast to bow. It is rigged exactly like a spinnaker but its tack is fastened to the bowsprit. This is fundamentally an essential sail if you're looking for something to bridge the gap between a genoa and a spinnaker.

Setting a Gennaker

When cruising, the gennaker is set with the tack line from the bow, a halyard, and a sheet that's led to the aft quarter. Attach the tack to a furling unit and attach it to a fitting on the hull near the very front of the sailboat. You can then attach the halyard that will help in pulling it up to the top of the mast before attaching it to the clew. The halyard can then run back to the winches to make the controlling of the sail shape easier, just like when using the genoa sail.

In essence, a gennaker is a superb sail that will give you the maximum versatility of achieving the best of both a genoa and a spinnaker, especially when sailing downwind. This is particularly of great importance if you're cruising by autopilot or at night.

Light Air Sails

Even though downwind sails can be used as light air sails, not all light air sails can be used for downwind sailing. In other words, there's a level of difference between downwind sails and light air sails. Light air sails include code zero, windseeker, and drifter reacher.

A cross between an asymmetrical spinnaker and a genoa, a code zero is a highly modern sail type that's generally used when sailing close to the wind in light air. Although the initial idea of code zero was to make a larger genoa, it settled on a narrow and flat spinnaker while upholding the shape of a genoa.

Modern boats come with code zero sails that can be used as soon as the sailboat bears off close-hauled even a little bit. It has a nearly straight luff and is designed to be very flat for close reaching. This sail is designed to give your boat extra performance in light winds, especially in boats that do not have overlapping genoas. It also mitigates the problem of loss of power when you are reaching with a non-overlapping headsail. Really, it is closer to a light air jib that sacrifices a little angle for speed.

In many conditions, a code zero sail can go as high as a sailboat with just a jib. By hoisting a code zero, you'll initially have to foot off about 15 degrees to fill it and get the power that you require to heel and move the boat. The boat will not only speed up but will also allow you to put the bow up while also doing the same course as before you set the zero. In essence, code zero can be an efficient way of giving your boat about 30% more speed and this is exactly why it's a vital inventory item in racing sailboats.

When it comes to furling code zero, the best way to do it is through a top-down furling system as this will ensure that you never get a twist in the system.

Generally used when a full size and heavier sail doesn't stay stable or pressurized, a windseeker is a very light sail that's designed for drifting conditions. This is exactly why they're designed with a forgiving cloth to allow them to handle these challenging conditions.

The windseeker should be tacked at the headstay with two sheets on the clew. To help this sail fill in the doldrums, you can heel the boat to whatever the apparent leeward side is and let gravity help you maintain a good sail shape while reaching.The ideal angle of a windseeker should be about 60 degrees.

Though only used in very specific conditions, the windseeker is so good at this one job that it is worth the investment if you plan on a long cruise. Still, you can substitute most off the breeze sails for this in a pinch, with slightly less performance gain, likely with more sacrifices in angle to the breeze.

Drifter Reacher

Many cruising sailors often get intimidated by the idea of setting and trimming a drifter if it's attached to the rig at only three corners or if it's free-flying. But whether or not a drifter is appropriate for your boat will hugely depend on your boat's rig, as well as other specific details such as your crew's ability to furl and unfurl the drifter and, of course, your intended cruising grounds.

But even with that, the drifter remains a time-honored sail that's handy and very versatile. Unlike other light air sails, the drifter perfectly carries on all points of sails as it allows the boat to sail close-hauled and to tack. It is also very easy to control when it's set and struck. In simpler terms, a drifter is principally a genoa that's built of lightweight fabric such as nylon. Regardless of the material, the drifter is a superb sail if you want to sail off a lee shore without using the genoa.

Generally stronger than other regular sails, stormsails are designed to handle winds of over 45 knots and are great when sailing in stormy conditions. They include a storm jib and a trysail.

If you sail long and far enough, chances are you have or will soon be caught in stormy conditions. Under such conditions, storm jibs can be your insurance and you'll be better off if you have a storm jib that has the following features:

Robustly constructed using heavyweight sailcloth
Sized suitably for the boat
Highly visible even in grey and white seas

That's not all; you should never go out there without a storm jib as this, together with the trysail, is the only sails that will be capable of weathering some of nature's most testing situations.

Storm jibs typically have high clews to give you the flexibility of sheet location. You can raise the sail with a spare halyard until its lead position is closed-hauled in the right position. In essence, storm jib is your insurance policy when out there sailing: you should always have it but always hope that you never have to use it.

Also known as a spencer, a trysail is a small, bright orange, veritably bullet-proof, and triangular sail that's designed to save the boat's mainsail from winds over 45 knots and works in the same way as a storm jib. It is designed to enable you to make progress to windward even in strong and stormy winds.

Trysails generally use the same mast track as the mainsail but you have to introduce the slides into the gate from the head of the trysail.

There are two main types of rigs: the fore-and-aft rig and the square rigg.

Fore-and-aft Rig

This is a sailing rig that chiefly has the sails set along the lines of the keel and not perpendicular to it. It can be divided into three categories: Bermuda rig, Gaff rig, and Lateen rig.

Bermuda Rig - Also known as a Marconi rig, this is the typical configuration of most modern sailboats. It has been used since the 17th century and remains one of the most efficient types of rigs. The rig revolves around setting a triangular sail aft of the mast with the head raised to the top of the mast. The luff should run down the mast and be attached to the entire length.

Gaff Rig - This is the most popular fore-and-aft rig on vessels such as the schooner and barquentine. It revolves around having the sail four-cornered and controlled at its peak. In other words, the head of the mainsail is guided by a gaff.

Lateen Rig - This is a triangular fore-and-aft rig whereby a triangular sail is configured on a long yard that's mounted at a given angle of the mast while running in a fore-and-aft direction. Lateen rig is commonly used in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean.

Square Rigged

This is a rig whereby the mainsails are arranged in a horizontal spar so that they're square or vertical to the mast and the keel of the boat. The square rig is highly efficient when sailing downwind and was once very popular with ocean-going sailboats.

Unquestionably, sailing is always pleasurable. Imagine turning off the engine of your boat, hoisting the sails, and filling them with air! This is, without a doubt, a priceless moment that will make your boat keel and jump forward!

But being propelled by the noiseless motion of the wind and against the mighty currents and pounding waves of the seas require that you know various sail types and how to use them not just in propelling your boat but also in ensuring that you enjoy sailing and stay safe. Sails are a gorgeous way of getting forward. They remain the main fascination of sailboats and sea cruising. If anything, sails and boats are inseparable and are your true friends when out there on the water. As such, getting to know different types of sails and how to use them properly is of great importance.

All in all, let's wish you calm seas, fine winds, and a sturdy mast!

I've personally had thousands of questions about sailing and sailboats over the years. As I learn and experience sailing, and the community, I share the answers that work and make sense to me, here on Life of Sailing.

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25 of the best small sailing boat designs

Nic Compton
August 10, 2022

Nic Compton looks at the 25 yachts under 40ft which have had the biggest impact on UK sailing

25 of the best small sailing boat designs

There’s nothing like a list of best small sailing boat designs to get the blood pumping.

Everyone has their favourites, and everyone has their pet hates.

This is my list of the 25 best small sailing boat designs, honed down from the list of 55 yachts I started with.

I’ve tried to be objective and have included several boats I don’t particularly like but which have undeniably had an impact on sailing in the UK – and yes, it would be quite a different list if I was writing about another country.

If your favourite isn’t on the best small sailing boat designs list, then send an email to [email protected] to argue the case for your best-loved boat.

Ready? Take a deep breath…

A green hull Centaur yacht, named as one of the 25 best small sailing boat designs

Credit: Bob Aylott

Laurent Giles is best known for designing wholesome wooden cruising boats such as the Vertue and Wanderer III , yet his most successful design was the 26ft Centaur he designed for Westerly, of which a remarkable 2,444 were built between 1969 and 1980.

It might not be the prettiest boat on the water, but it sure packs a lot of accommodation.

The Westerly Centaur was one of the first production boats to be tank tested, so it sails surprisingly well too. Jack L Giles knew what he was doing.

Colin Archer

Credit: Nic Compton

Only 32 Colin Archer lifeboats were built during their designer’s lifetime, starting with Colin Archer in 1893 and finishing with Johan Bruusgaard in 1924.

Yet their reputation for safety spawned hundreds of copycat designs, the most famous of which was Sir Robin Knox-Johnston ’s Suhaili , which he sailed around the world singlehanded in 1968-9.

The term Colin Archer has become so generic it is often used to describe any double-ender – so beware!

Contessa 32

Assent ‘s performance in the 1979 Fastnet Race makes the Contessa 32 a worth entry in the 25 best small sailing boat designs list. Credit: Nic Compton

Designed by David Sadler as a bigger alternative to the popular Contessa 26, the Contessa 32 was built by Jeremy Rogers in Lymington from 1970.

The yacht’s credentials were established when Assent , the Contessa 32 owned by Willy Kerr and skippered by his son Alan, became the only yacht in her class to complete the deadly 1979 Fastnet Race .

When UK production ceased in 1983, more than 700 had been built, and another 20 have been built since 1996.

Cornish Crabber 24

A Cornish crabber with a blue hull and white sails

It seemed a daft idea to build a gaff-rigged boat in 1974, just when everyone else had embraced the ‘modern’ Bermudan rig.

Yet the first Cornish Crabber 24, designed by Roger Dongray, tapped into a feeling that would grow and grow and eventually become a movement.

The 24 was followed in 1979 by the even more successful Shrimper 19 – now ubiquitous in almost every harbour in England – and the rest is history.

Drascombe Lugger

Credit: David Harding

There are faster, lighter and more comfortable boats than a Drascombe Lugger.

And yet, 57 years after John Watkinson designed the first ‘lugger’ (soon changed to gunter rig), more than 2,000 have been built and the design is still going strong.

More than any other boat, the Drascombe Lugger opened up dinghy cruising, exemplified by Ken Duxbury’s Greek voyages in the 1970s and Webb Chiles’s near-circumnavigation on Chidiock Tichbourne I and II .

An Eventide lunch with white sails and a blue hull sailing offshore

The 26ft Eventide. Credit: David Harding

It’s been described as the Morris Minor of the boating world – except that the majority of the 1,000 Eventides built were lovingly assembled by their owners, not on a production line.

After you’d tested your skills building the Mirror dinghy, you could progress to building a yacht.

And at 24ft long, the Eventide packed a surprising amount of living space.

It was Maurice Griffiths’ most successful design and helped bring yachting to a wider audience.

A Fisher 30 yacht with blue hull and red sails

You either love ’em or you hate ’em – motorsailers, that is.

The Fisher 30 was brought into production in 1971 and was one of the first out-and-out motorsailers.

With its long keel , heavy displacement and high bulwarks, it was intended to evoke the spirit of North Sea fishing boats.

It might not sail brilliantly but it provided an exceptional level of comfort for its size and it would look after you when things turned nasty.

Significantly, it was also fitted with a large engine.

A Folkboat with white sails and blue hull

Credit: Rupert Holmes

It should have been a disaster.

In 1941, when the Scandinavian Sailing Federation couldn’t choose a winner for their competition to design an affordable sailing boat, they gave six designs to naval architect Tord Sundén and asked him to combine the best features from each.

The result was a sweet-lined 25ft sloop which was very seaworthy and fast.

The design has been built in GRP since the 1970s and now numbers more than 4,000, with fleets all over the world.

A Freedom 40 yacht with a blue hull and two masts carrying white sails

Credit: Kevin Barber

There’s something disconcerting about a boat with two unstayed masts and no foresails, and certainly the Freedom range has its detractors.

Yet as Garry Hoyt proved, first with the Freedom 40, designed in collaboration with Halsey Herreshoff, and then the Freedom 33 , designed with Jay Paris, the boats are simple to sail (none of those clattering jib sheets every time you tack) and surprisingly fast – at least off the wind .

Other ‘cat ketch’ designs followed but the Freedoms developed their own cult following.

Hillyard 12-tonner

A classic sailing boat with a white hull and white sails

The old joke about Hillyards is that you won’t drown on one but you might starve to death getting there.

And yet this religious boatbuilder from Littlehampton built up to 800 yachts which travelled around the world – you can find them cruising far-flung destinations.

Sizes ranged from 2.5 to 20 tons, though the 9- and 12-ton are best for long cruises.

The yacht Jester with a junk rig and yellow hull at the start of the OSTAR

The innovations on Jester means she is one of the best small sailing boat designs in the last 100 years. Credit: Ewen Southby-Tailyour

Blondie Hasler was one of the great sailing innovators and Jester was his testing ground.

She was enclosed, carvel planked and had an unstayed junk rig.

Steering was via a windvane system Hasler created.

Hasler came second in the first OSTAR , proving small boats can achieve great things.

A yacht with a white hull and blue and white sails

Moody kicked off the era of comfort-oriented boats with its very first design.

The Moody 33, designed by Angus Primrose, had a wide beam and high topside to produce a voluminous hull .

The centre cockpit allowed for an aft cabin, resulting in a 33-footer with two sleeping cabins – an almost unheard of concept in 1973 –full-beam heads and spacious galley.

What’s more, her performance under sail was more than adequate for cruising.

Finally, here was a yacht that all the family could enjoy.

Continues below…

What makes a boat seaworthy?

What characteristics make a yacht fit for purpose? Duncan Kent explores the meaning of 'seaworthy' and how hull design and…

How boat design is evolving

Will Bruton looks at the latest trends and innovations shaping the boats we sail

How keel type affects performance

James Jermain looks at the main keel types, their typical performance and the pros and cons of each

Boat handling: How to use your yacht’s hull shape to your advantage

Whether you have a long keel or twin keel rudders, there will be pros and cons when it comes to…

Nicholson 32

Credit: Genevieve Leaper

Charles Nicholson was a giant of the wooden boat era but one of his last designs – created with his son Peter – was a pioneering fibreglass boat that would become an enduring classic.

With its long keel and heavy displacement, the Nicholson 32 is in many ways a wooden boat built in fibreglass – and indeed the design was based on Nicholson’s South Coast One Design.

From 1966 to 1977, the ‘Nic 32’ went through 11 variations.

Credit: Hallberg-Rassy

In the beginning there was… the Rasmus 35. This was the first yacht built by the company that would become Hallberg-Rassy and which would eventually build more than 9,000 boats.

The Rasmus 35, designed by Olle Enderlein, was a conservative design, featuring a centre cockpit, long keel and well-appointed accommodation.

Some 760 boats were built between 1967 and 1978.

Two classic wooden yachts with white sails sailing side by side

Credit: Larry & Lin Pardey

Lyle Hess was ahead of his time when he designed Renegade in 1949.

Despite winning the Newport to Ensenada race, the 25ft wooden cutter went largely unnoticed.

Hess had to build bridges for 15 years before Larry Pardey asked him to design the 24ft Seraffyn , closely based on Renegade ’s lines but with a Bermudan rig.

Pardey’s subsequent voyages around the world cemented Hess’s reputation and success of the Renegade design.

A Rustler 36 yacht being sailed off the coast of Falmouth

Would the Rustler 36 make it on your best small sailing boat list? Credit: Rustler Yachts

Six out of 18 entries for the 2018 Golden Globe Race (GGR) were Rustler 36s, with the top three places all going to Rustler 36 skippers.

It was a fantastic endorsement for a long-keel yacht designed by Holman & Pye 40 years before.

Expect to see more Rustler 36s in the 2022 edition of the GGR!

An S&S 34 yacht sailing offshore with white sails

It was Ted Heath who first brought the S&S 34 to prominence with his boat Morning Cloud .

In 1969 the yacht won the Sydney to Hobart Race, despite being one of the smallest boats in the race.

Other epic S&S 34 voyages include the first ever single-handed double circumnavigation by Jon Sanders in 1981

A yacht with a red, white and blue spinnaker sailing into the distance

Credit: Colin Work

The Contessa 32 might seem an impossible boat to improve upon, but that’s what her designer David Sadler attempted to do in 1979 with the launch of the Sadler 32 .

That was followed two years later by the Sadler 29 , a tidy little boat that managed to pack in six berths in a comfortable open-plan interior.

The boat was billed as ‘unsinkable’, with a double-skinned hull separated by closed cell foam buoyancy.

What’s more, it was fast, notching up to 12 knots.

The Sigma 33 yacht - named as one of the 25 best small sailing boat designs

Credit: Dick Durham/Yachting Monthly

Another modern take on the Contessa theme was the Sigma 33, designed by David Thomas in 1979.

A modern underwater body combined with greater beam and higher freeboard produced a faster boat with greater accommodation.

And, like the Contessa, the Sigma 33 earned its stripes at the 1979 Fastnet, when two of the boats survived to tell the tale.

A lively one-design fleet soon developed on the Solent which is still active to this day.

A replica of Joshua Slocum’s Spray . Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

The boat Joshua Slocum used for his first singlehanded circumnavigation of the world wasn’t intended to sail much further than the Chesapeake Bay.

The 37ft Spray was a rotten old oyster sloop which a friend gave him and which he had to spend 13 months fixing up.

Yet this boxy little tub, with its over-optimistic clipper bow, not only took Slocum safely around the world but has spawned dozens of modern copies that have undertaken long ocean passages.

James Wharram drew many pioneering designs during his lifetime, which is why Tangaroa, which opened up cruising to many, is on the 25 best sailing boat designs list. Credit: James Wharram Designs

Credit: James Wharram Designs

What are boats for if not for dreaming? And James Wharram had big dreams.

First he sailed across the Atlantic on the 23ft 6in catamaran Tangaroa .

He then built the 40ft Rongo on the beach in Trinidad (with a little help from French legend Bernard Moitessier) and sailed back to the UK.

Then he drew the 34ft Tangaroa (based on Rongo ) for others to follow in his wake and sold 500 plans in 10 years.

A Twister yacht with a white hull and white sails

Credit: Graham Snook/Yachting Monthly

The Twister was designed in a hurry.

Kim Holman wanted a boat at short notice for the 1963 season and, having had some success with his Stella design (based on the Folkboat), he rushed out a ‘knockabout cruising boat for the summer with some racing for fun’.

The result was a Bermudan sloop that proved nigh on unbeatable on the East Anglian circuit.

It proved to be Holman’s most popular design with more than 200 built.

A black and white photos of a wooden yacht

Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

Laurent Giles’s design No15 was drawn in 1935 for a Guernsey solicitor who wanted ‘a boat that would spin on a sixpence and I could sail single-handed ’.

What the young Jack Giles gave him was a pretty transom-sterned cutter, with a nicely raked stem.

Despite being moderate in every way, the boat proved extremely able and was soon racking up long distances, including Humphrey Barton’s famous transatlantic crossing on Vertue XXXV in 1950.

Wanderer II and III

Wanderer 3 yacht sailing with red brown sails

Credit: Thies Matzen

Eric and Susan Hiscock couldn’t afford a Vertue, so Laurent Giles designed a smaller, 21ft version for them which they named Wanderer II .

They were back a few years later, this time wanting a bigger version: the 30ft Wanderer III .

It was this boat they sailed around the world between 1952-55, writing articles and sailing books along the way.

In doing so, they introduced a whole generation of amateur sailors to the possibilities of long-distance cruising.

Westerly 22

The origins of Westerly Marine were incredibly modest.

Commander Denys Rayner started building plywood dinghies in the 1950s which morphed into a 22ft pocket cruiser called the Westcoaster.

Realising the potential of fibreglass, in 1963 he adapted the design to create the Westerly 22, an affordable cruising boat with bilge keels and a reverse sheer coachroof.

Some 332 boats were built to the design before it was relaunched as the Nomad (267 built).

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Sailing boat types: Exploring the diversity of sailboats

Sailing boat types: Exploring the diversity of sailboats

Sailing has been an integral part of human history, enabling exploration, trade, and leisure. The diversity of sailboat types mirrors the ingenuity and adaptability of sailors throughout time. Whether you're drawn to classic designs that evoke nostalgia or innovative multihulls that push the boundaries of modern engineering, the world of sailboats holds endless possibilities.

The classic sloop: Timeless elegance

The sloop is a quintessential sailboat type known for its simplicity and versatility. With a single mast and a fore-and-aft mainsail configuration, sloops are easy to handle and ideal for single-handed sailing. Their sleek design and efficient rigging make them a popular choice among both beginners and experienced sailors.

Majestic schooners: A legacy of tall ships

Schooners evoke images of grandeur and adventure, harking back to the golden age of sailing. These majestic vessels feature multiple masts, often with two or more foresails. Schooners were historically used for trade and exploration, and while modern versions retain their classic charm, they now cater to luxury cruising and charter experiences.

The versatile ketch: Dual masted delight

Ketches are defined by their two-mast configuration, with the main mast located forward and a shorter mizzen mast aft. This arrangement allows for a balanced distribution of sail area and offers versatility in sail combinations. Ketches are prized for their ability to handle various weather conditions and provide comfortable cruising experiences.

Read our top notch articles on topics such as sailing, sailing tips and destinations in our Magazine .

Catamarans: Modern multihull marvels

Catamarans are contemporary marvels of sailing design, boasting two hulls connected by a spacious deck. This configuration offers stability, shallow draft, and ample living space. Catamarans are popular for bluewater cruising and offer a luxurious and comfortable lifestyle at sea.

Trimarans: Three hulls for extraordinary speed

Trimarans push the boundaries of speed and innovation with their three-hull configuration. The main hull is flanked by two smaller outrigger hulls, enabling impressive speed and reduced heeling. Trimarans are favored by sailors seeking thrilling adventures and rapid passage-making.

Gaff rigged boats: Nautical nostalgia

Gaff rigged boats hearken back to a bygone era with their traditional triangular sails and distinctive gaff rigging. While less common in modern sailboats, gaff rigs evoke a sense of nautical nostalgia and are cherished by enthusiasts who appreciate their historical significance.

Sloops and cutters: A tale of two sails

Sloops and cutters are renowned for their efficiency and simplicity. Both feature a single mast, with sloops having a single headsail and cutters having multiple headsails. Their balanced sail plans make them easy to handle and versatile for various conditions, from leisurely cruising to competitive racing.

Brigantines: Sailing royalty

Brigantines exude regal elegance with their two masts – a square-rigged foremast and a fore-and-aft rigged mainmast. Historically used for trade and exploration, brigantines showcase the synergy between square and fore-and-aft sails, offering impressive maneuverability.

Different sails for different tales

Understanding sail types is essential for sailboat enthusiasts. From the iconic mainsail and jib to spinnakers and gennakers, each sail serves a specific purpose. Mainsails provide propulsion, while jibs aid in steering. Spinnakers and gennakers are employed for downwind sailing, harnessing the wind's power for increased speed.

Navigating two-mast boats

Two-mast boats, such as the ketch and schooner, offer unique advantages in sail distribution and versatility. The combination of main and mizzen masts allows for various sail combinations, enabling effective navigation across diverse conditions. Understanding the dynamics of two-mast boats enhances your ability to harness their potential.

Setting sail with yawl-rigged vessels

Yawls share similarities with ketches but feature a shorter mizzen mast positioned aft of the rudder post. This configuration assists in balancing the helm and provides an alternative to traditional ketch designs. Yawls are valued for their enhanced maneuverability and ease of handling.

Sailboat types for racing enthusiasts

For those seeking competitive sailing experiences, specific sailboat types are tailored for racing prowess. One-design classes ensure a level playing field, focusing on sailor skill rather than boat design. Classes like the Laser, Optimist, and J/24 offer thrilling races that test agility, strategy, and speed.

So what are you waiting for? Take a look at our range of charter boats and head to some of our favourite sailing destinations .

FAQs about boats

Boat Sailor

Type of sails: a comprehensive guide to sails.

As an avid sailing enthusiast and advisor, I am excited to share a complete guide to different types of sails for sailboats. Choosing the right sail is crucial for optimizing sailing performance and ensuring safety in various weather conditions. In this article, we will explore the main type of sails, their advantages, and when to use them effectively. So let’s set sail and delve into the world of sails!

The Main Types of Sails

Mainsail: The Backbone of Sailing

The mainsail, being the largest and most essential sail on a sailboat, plays a central role in driving the vessel forward. It is a fore-and-aft rigged sail attached to the mast and the boom. Mainsails are incredibly versatile and suitable for various wind conditions, making them the go-to sail for most situations. They are easy to steer, even in light winds, making them ideal for relaxed cruising.

Headsail/Jib: Your Go-To Sail for Safety

The headsail, also known as a jib , is a smaller sail located forward of the mast. Its primary purpose is to maintain stability and balance the boat in strong winds. When the wind picks up, the mainsail can become overpowering, and that’s when the headsail steps in to ensure safe and controlled sailing. It’s like having a safety net during rough weather conditions.

Genoa: Power and Versatility Combined

The genoa is a type of headsail that offers more sail area and power compared to a standard jib. It’s perfect for boosting speed and maneuverability, especially in light winds. Genoas are incredibly versatile, making them an excellent choice for sailors who want to get the most out of their sailboat in various conditions.

Sailing Ship Rigs: A Historical Perspective

In the era of the “golden age of sail,” different sail plans were used on sailing vessels to optimize their performance and accommodate smaller crews.

Fore and Aft Rig

The fore-and-aft rig, consisting of sails aligned along the length of the boat, includes popular designs like schooners and sloops. These rigs required smaller crews and were well-suited for coastal and fishing trades.

Square topsail schooners with athwart sails were also prevalent during that time. They were used for cargo ships and long voyages, but their complex rigging required larger crews to handle the sails effectively.

The Golden Age of Sail

This period marked the peak of sailing ship technology and saw remarkable advancements in shipbuilding and sail design. It’s a fascinating chapter in the history of sailing that continues to inspire sailors to this day.

Type of Sails Names: Decoding the Terminology

Mainsail and Foresail

The mainsail, as mentioned earlier, is the principal sail that catches the wind to move the boat forward. Foresail is a general term that includes various sails positioned near the bow of the sailboat, such as the jib and genoa.

Genoa and Jib

The genoa and jib are both types of foresails. The genoa is larger and overlaps the mainsail, providing additional power and efficiency. The jib, on the other hand, is smaller and is used when the wind is stronger.

Staysail and Spinnaker

Staysails are triangular sails set between masts and stays, used to improve stability and balance. Spinnakers are large, balloon-shaped sails used for downwind sailing, providing an extra boost of speed.

Choosing the Right Sail for Different Conditions

Sailing in Light Winds

In light winds, the mainsail is your best friend. It’s highly efficient and capable of catching even the slightest breeze, propelling the boat forward smoothly.

Sailing in Strong Winds

When the wind picks up, it’s time to rely on the headsail or jib. These sails provide a reduced surface area, preventing the boat from becoming overpowered and ensuring a controlled sail.

Navigating Challenging Weather

Different weather conditions call for different sails. Understanding the intricacies of each sail and when to use them will help you navigate through challenging weather with ease.

Type of Sails Materials: Quality Matters

Traditional Canvas Sails

Traditional canvas sails, made of materials like cotton or linen, were commonly used in the past. While they offer a classic charm, their performance and durability have limitations compared to modern sail materials.

Modern Sail Materials

Today, sail manufacturers utilize advanced materials like Dacron, Mylar, and Kevlar. These materials offer superior strength, low stretch, and better shape retention, contributing to improved sailing performance.

Pros and Cons of Each Material

Understanding the pros and cons of different sail materials will help you make an informed decision when purchasing or maintaining your sails.

Understanding Sail Shapes and Configurations

The Science of Sail Shape

Sail shape is crucial for maximizing performance and efficiency. Properly trimmed sails allow you to sail efficiently, whether you’re sailing upwind or downwind.

Balancing Performance and Stability

Finding the right balance between performance and stability is essential. Adjusting sail shape and trim can significantly impact your sailing experience.

Fine-Tuning Sail Trim

Sail trim is an art form. Mastering the art of fine-tuning sail trim will make you a more skilled sailor and enhance your overall sailing experience.

The Evolution of Sail Designs

From Classic to Cutting-Edge

Sail design has come a long way. From classic traditional sails to modern, innovative designs, sailmaking has witnessed significant evolution.

How Technology Impacted Sail Design

Technological advancements have revolutionized sailmaking, resulting in more efficient, aerodynamic, and performance-oriented sails.

Innovation in Sailmaking

Sailmakers are continually exploring new materials and construction techniques to create sails that are lighter, stronger, and more efficient than ever before.

Sailing Techniques: Getting the Most Out of Your Sails

Tacking and Gybing

Tacking and gybing are essential sailing maneuvers used to change the direction of the boat and optimize the use of wind.

Maximizing Speed

To get the most out of your sails, understanding how to trim them properly and sail at optimal angles is crucial for achieving higher speeds.

Safety Precautions

Sailing is exhilarating, but safety should always be a top priority. Understanding safety procedures and precautions will ensure a safe and enjoyable sailing experience.

Maintaining and Storing Sails

Sail Care and Maintenance

Proper care and maintenance are essential to prolong the life of your sails and keep them in top condition.

Storing Sails Properly

When not in use, storing sails correctly can prevent damage and maintain their performance over time.

Extending the Lifespan of Sails

With proper care and attention, you can extend the lifespan of your sails, making them a worthy investment.

Sustainable Sailing: Eco-Friendly Sail Materials

The Impact of Traditional Sails on the Environment

Traditional sail materials, while charming, may have a more significant environmental impact compared to modern, eco-friendly alternatives.

Eco-Friendly Sail Options

Eco-conscious sailors can explore sustainable sail materials that minimize environmental harm without compromising performance.

Embracing Sustainable Practices

As sailors, we have a responsibility to protect the oceans and environment. Embracing sustainable practices in sailing is essential for the well-being of our planet.

As we conclude this comprehensive guide to different type of sails, I hope you now have a deeper understanding of the critical role sails play in sailing. Choosing the right sail and mastering sail techniques will elevate your sailing experience to new heights. Remember, sailing is an ever-evolving journey of learning and adventure.

Which sail is best for light winds?

The mainsail is the most suitable sail for light winds as it can efficiently catch even the slightest breeze and keep the boat moving smoothly.

What is the purpose of a genoa?

The genoa is a type of sails that provides additional power and versatility, making it an excellent choice for boosting speed and maneuverability in various wind conditions.

What sail material is most durable?

Modern sail materials like Dacron and Kevlar offer superior strength and durability compared to traditional canvas sails made of cotton or linen.

How do I maintain my sails?

Proper care and maintenance, including regular cleaning and inspection, will help prolong the life of your sails and ensure they perform optimally.

Are there eco-friendly sail options?

Yes, eco-conscious sailors can opt for sustainable sail materials that minimize environmental impact, contributing to a greener and more sustainable sailing experience.

Michael Thompson

Embarking on a lifelong love affair with the sea, I found solace and exhilaration in the art of sailing. From navigating treacherous waters to harnessing the wind's untamed power, my passion has evolved into a mission to inspire others. Join me on a voyage of discovery as we explore the vast horizons of sailing's timeless allure.

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Keel Sailing Boat: Navigating the Seas with Stability

A foresail is a sail located forward of the mast. The luff of the sail is attached to the forestay , and the clew is usually attached to two sheets which are lead to either side of the boat.

Foresails can come in different sizes. The size of a foresail is designated by how far aft toward the mast the clew of the sail reaches. A 70% sail would only reach 70% of the way from the forestay to the mast, and a 130% sail would reach 130% past the mast, overlapping the mainsail (the actual formula is a bit more complicated).

A foresail that is 100% or less is called a jib . A sail that is more than 100% is called a genoa . However, in common usage, any size foresail is often just called a jib. The term working jib is sometimes used to specifically refer to a jib sail that is smaller than 100%.

Foresails are often numbered in decreasing order of their size. The #1 sail would be the largest genoa, and a working jib might be #3 or #4.

Sailing Terms

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A foresail is one of a few different types of sail set on the foremost mast ( foremast ) of a sailing vessel :

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A fore-and-aft sail set on the foremast of a schooner or similar vessel. [1]
The lowest square sail on the foremast of a full-rigged ship or other vessel which is square-rigged . [2]

Sails set forward of the mainmast , such as jibs and staysails , are sometimes referred to as foresails, although " headsails " is a more common term, headsail can also specifically refer to the sail on a forestay that connects directly to the head of the mast.

Foresails set on foremasts between midships and bow were the first type of sail to appear after the mainsail which had been the sole standard rig on sailing vessels for millennia, down to classical antiquity . [3] The earliest foresail, or two-masted ship, has been identified on an Etruscan pyxis from Caere , Italy , dating to the mid-7th century BC: a warship with a furled mainsail is engaging an enemy vessel, deploying a foresail. [4] A two-masted merchant vessel with a sizable foresail rigged on a slightly inclined foremast is depicted in an Etruscan tomb painting from 475 to 450 BC. [5] An artemon ( Greek for foresail) almost the same size as the galley 's mainsail can be found on a Corinthian krater as early as the late 6th century BC, but apart from that Greek longships of the 8th–5th century BC are uniformly shown without it. [6]

The foresail became fairly common on Roman war galleys , [6] where it seems to be used rather for steering than as a driver. [3] Its size was reduced and the now strongly raked foremast made it more appear like a bowsprit sail. [6] While most of the evidence is iconographic, the existence of foresails can also archaeologically be deduced from slots in foremast-feets located too close to the prow for a mainsail. [7] Artemon , along with mainsail and topsail , developed into the standard rig of seagoing vessels in imperial times , complemented by a mizzen on the largest freighters. [8] Throughout antiquity , both foresail and mizzen remained secondary in terms of canvas size, but still large enough to require full running rigging . [8] In late antiquity , the foremast lost most of its tilt, standing nearly upright on some ships. [8]

By the onset of the Early Middle Ages , rigging had undergone a fundamental transformation in Mediterranean navigation: the lateen which had long evolved on smaller Greco-Roman craft replaced the square rig, the chief sail type of the ancients, which practically disappeared from the record until the 14th century (while it remained dominant in northern Europe). [9] [10] The dromon , the lateen-rigged and oared bireme of the Byzantine navy , almost certainly had two sails, a larger foresail and one midships. The length of its foremast has been estimated at about 12 m, somewhat smaller than that of the Sicilian war galleys of the time. [11]

Multiple-masted sailing ships were reintroduced into the Mediterranean by the Late Middle Ages . Large vessels were coming more and more into use and the need for additional sails to control these ships adequately grew with the increase in tonnage. Unlike in antiquity, the foresail was adopted on medieval two-masters after the mizzen, evidence for which dates to the mid-14th century. To balance out the sail plan the next obvious step was to add a mast fore of the main-mast, which first appears on a Catalan vessel from 1409. With the three-masted ship established, propelled by square rig and lateen , and guided by the pintle -and- gudgeon rudder , all advanced ship design technology necessary for the great transoceanic voyages was in place by the early 15th century. [12]

3 people are dead, several missing after migrant boat runs into trouble off southeastern Spain

MADRID — A boat carrying a group of migrants ran into trouble off the coast of southeastern Spain killing at least three people and several others were believed missing, authorities said Friday.

Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service said in a statement that two survivors and three bodies were found on a partially sunken boat off the coast near the town of Motril. The two survivors said the boat had been carrying 12 people when it set sail from Algeria six days ago, leading authorities to suspect seven others may have fallen into the sea.

The two survivors and three bodies were taken by helicopter to the mainland.

Tens of thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan countries fleeing poverty, conflict and instability in West Africa try to reach Spain each year in large open boats. Most go to the Canary Islands in the Atlantic , while others from Morocco , Algeria and Middle Eastern countries try to cross the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean to mainland Spain. Several thousand die making the hazardous journey.

The Interior Ministry says 14, 405 migrants arrived in Spain by boat between Jan. 1 and Mar. 15, up from 3,528 in the same period last year. The vast majority arrived on the Canary Island route.

Follow AP’s global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

China’s Navy Ship Tails Philippine Coast Guard Amid Sea Spat

More than a dozen Chinese vessels visible from Thitu island
Southeast Asian nation has intensified maritime surveillance

A China Coast Guard vessel in the South China Sea on March 5.

The Philippines said a Chinese Navy ship “shadowed” its coast guard vessel en route to a Philippines-occupied island in the South China Sea in the latest incident between the two nations asserting overlapping maritime claims.

The Philippine Coast Guard issued radio challenges to the Chinese Navy vessel that followed its ship on Tuesday, but didn’t get any response, spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Thursday from Thitu island in the Spratlys.

International edition
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Rohingya refugees crowded on to the hull of their boat.

Dozens of Rohingya refugees rescued from overturned boat in Indian Ocean

Soaked survivors clung to hull overnight before being taken to safety by Indonesian rescue team

Dozens of Rohingya refugees have been rescued from the Indian Ocean off the coast of Indonesia after spending the night balanced on the hull of their overturned boat.

Seventy-five people were pulled from the stricken vessel, which was spotted on Thursday by an Indonesian search and rescue ship.

Survivors said the boat had capsized on Wednesday. Men, women and children, weak and soaked from the night’s rain, wept as the rescue operation got under way and they were taken onboard a rubber dinghy to the rescue boat.

There were contradictory reports about whether anyone had died, with survivors saying many who had been onboard when their boat left Bangladesh were still unaccounted for, but authorities said everyone had been rescued.

Samira, 17, who was among the refugees from the Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh, who had been travelling to Malaysia, said there had been 146 people onboard, raising the prospect that 71 could be missing at sea.

She said the boat began foundering three days previously and capsized on Wednesday, adding that her nephew was among those unaccounted for. “All of us are very sad,” she said. “We are very hungry and weak.”

When fishing vessels reached the scene on Wednesday, desperate refugees clambered on to one of the boats, overloading it and causing it also to capsize. It was not immediately clear what happened to its crew.

After Indonesian authorities were informed by the fishers about the refugees’ plight, an official search and rescue team set off from Banda Aceh city on Wednesday evening. They reached the area of the accident early the next morning and initially could not find the capsized boat.

Crowds of children with bowls squashed together against a barrier looking distressed

When they came upon it at midday, they found the refugees on its hull. They rescued 42 men, 18 women and nine children and took some to a temporary shelter in the Aceh Besar district and others to a local hospital.

Amiruddin, a tribal fishing community leader in Aceh Barat district, said those rescued indicated that the boat was sailing east when it started leaking and strong currents pushed it toward the west of Aceh.

About 740,000 Rohingya had earlier fled to Bangladesh to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by security forces in their homeland of Myanmar.

However, thousands have since been trying to flee Bangladesh’s overcrowded camps for neighbouring countries, with Indonesia experiencing an increase in refugees since November, which prompted it to call on the international community for help. Some Rohingya arriving in Aceh face hostility from fellow Muslims .

Indonesia, like Thailand and Malaysia, is not a signatory to the 1951 UN refugee convention outlining refugees’ legal protections, and so is not obliged to accept refugees. However, these countries have so far provided temporary shelter to refugees in distress.

Last year, nearly 4,500 Rohingya, two-thirds of them women and children, fled Myanmar and the refugee camps of neighbouring Bangladesh by boat, the UN refugee agency reported. Of those, 569 died or went missing while crossing the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, the highest death toll since 2014.

Returning safely to Myanmar is virtually impossible because the military that attacked them overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government in 2021. No country has offered the Rohingya any large-scale resettlement opportunities.

Asia Pacific
South and central Asia

More on this story

Fears grow for hundreds of Rohingya refugees adrift for two weeks

About 180 Rohingya refugees feared dead after boat goes missing

Activists appeal for rescue of Rohingya refugees stranded at sea in leaking boat

Genocide case against Myanmar over Rohingya atrocities cleared to proceed

Myanmar junta takes place of Aung San Suu Kyi at Rohingya hearing

Thousands homeless as fire sweeps through Rohingya refugee camp

Rohingya sue Facebook for £150bn over Myanmar genocide

Prominent Rohingya leader shot dead in Bangladesh refugee camp

Hundreds of people missing after Rohingya refugee camp fire

India detains Rohingya refugees and threatens to deport them to Myanmar

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The Different Types Of Sails And When To Use Them
The clew will be attached to the foresails sheet. It can be used without the mainsail in certain conditions but for the most part the two sails are used together. The foresail is always forward of the main. ... In general, a sailboat contains two sails. Two sails is the typical setup for the best performance of the boat during different wind ...
Why Do Sailboats Have Two Sails? (Explained)
Having two sails (a mainsail and a jib) helps sailboats by allowing the sailor to better maneuver the sailboat through the water, easily increase the boat's speed, and have better handling over the boat overall. In short, having two sails offers improved control over the boat. With all these benefits, sailors can handle their boats with ease.
The Ultimate Guide to Sail Types and Rigs (with Pictures)
The 5 most common two-masted rigs are: Lugger - two masts (mizzen), with lugsail (cross between gaff rig and lateen rig) on both masts. Yawl - two masts (mizzen), fore-and-aft rigged on both masts. Main mast much taller than mizzen. Mizzen without mainsail. Ketch - two masts (mizzen), fore-and-aft rigged on both masts.
Cutter boats for sale
Cutter yachts are large, single-masted, three-sail (two foresails and a mainsail) sailing vessels frequently used for time-honored endeavors. These sailing vessels boast a remarkable heritage as highly desirable craft renowned for their exceptionally draft and very wide beam. ... Cutter sailing vessels for sale on YachtWorld are listed for a ...
The Different Types of Sailboats
A single-masted sailboat with just two sails — a foresail (aka headsail or jib) and a mainsail — is a sloop, the purest type of sailboat. ... A Cutter, two foresails and a mainsail. Examples of Cutters. Gulfstar 61. Valiant 40. Island Packet 380. Oyster 62. But..
Guide to Understanding Sail Rig Types (with Pictures)
Gaff ketch - two-masted (mizzen), two mainsails, staysails, fore-and-aft rigged. Full-rigged ship or tall ship - three or more masts, mainsail on each mast, staysails, square-rigged. The first word is the shape and rigging of the mainsail. So this is the way the sail is attached to the mast. I'll go into this later on.
Cutter-Rigged Sailboat Definition: Everything You Need to Know
Imagine an elegant vessel gracefully slicing through the water; that's a cutter-rigged sailboat in all its glory. A cutter rig is characterized by having multiple foresails—a mainsail located closest to the mast, supplemented by two foresails mounted ahead called the jib and staysail.
Jzerro: The oceangoing Pacific proa
The benchmark fastest sailing between the two cities was set by the 225ft three-masted clipper Flying Cloud, which sailed around in 89 days 8 hours in 1854, a time that was unbeaten for 135 years.
Foresail
The foresail (in pink) of a full rigged ship. A foresail is one of a few different types of sail set on the foremost mast (foremast) of a sailing vessel: . A fore-and-aft sail set on the foremast of a schooner or similar vessel.; The lowest square sail on the foremast of a full-rigged ship or other vessel which is square-rigged.; Sails set forward of the mainmast, such as jibs and staysails ...
Type Of Sails: A Complete Guide to Sails
Headsail/Jib. The headsail, or the jib, is likely the second most popular kind of sail found on sailboats. This is because it often accompanies the mainsail, the most popular kind. On all sailboats, the headsail is put at the front of the mast over the sailboat's bow. It is always a smaller sail than the mainsail.
7 Different Types of Boat Sails
1. Main and mizzen sails. A mainsail is the largest sail of a boat, and you attach it to the back of the main mast. If you have a boat with two masts, the smaller of the two is the mizzenmast, which carries the mizzen sail. The mizzen is smaller than the main on boats that are Bermuda rigged.
What's a Boat with Two Masts Called: Two masted sailing boat types
Ketch is a type of sailboat that features two masts and two sails, commonly used as a racing and cruising boat. The mainmast of this two-masted sailboat is typically taller than the mizzen mast (aft-mast). Its name derives from catch. Taller masts allow you to use larger sails, so ketch boats are able to achieve better speeds than similar boats ...
Convert Your Sloop to a Double-Headsail Rig
6.Padeyes forward: I prefer to use a combination of two folding padeyes and a single double padeye.The double goes on centerline, and the two others go outboard to either side of the double in a row abreast. When you set sail, the tack goes to the aft bail of the double padeye, while the forward bail carries one part of the purchase.
Sailing Stats: Types of Sailboats
A cutter is a sloop with one mast and two foresails and a mainsail. That additional sail between the headsail and mainsail is what makes a cutter a cutter (and not a sloop). Cutters are about 34 feet long. ... A yawl is an old-time-style fishing sailboat with two masts. It's similar to a ketch, but yawls have the mizzen mast positioned aft of ...
Beginner's Guide to Types of Sails
Luff (Front Edge): The luff is the front or leading edge of the sail (the side that faces into the wind). On a mainsail, the luff is usually attached to the mast and hoisted up. On a headsail, the luff is attached to the forestay. Leech (Outside Edge): The leech is the back or trailing edge of the sail (opposite the luff).
Our Favorite Sailing Rig: The Cutter, by Lin and Larry Pardey
A boat with lee helm has difficulty holding her bow up to the wind and seas, and therefore is a poor windward performer. A bout 90 percent of our sailing on TALEISIN is done with three sails: the 7-ounce, 100 percent bonneted jib; the 8-ounce staysail with two rows of reefs; and the 8-ounce mainsail with three rows of reefs. (This gives us ...
The Different Types of Sails On A Sailboat: An Easy Guide
A sloop-rigged sailboat typically features a mainsail, a headsail, and an additional light-wind sail, such as a spinnaker or Gennaker. The mainsail is rigged aft of the mast, while the headsail is attached to the forestay. The two most commonly used headsails are the Genoa and Jib. The sails are vital parts of a sailboat since you obviously ...
Sail Rigs And Types
Bermuda Rig - Also known as a Marconi rig, this is the typical configuration of most modern sailboats. It has been used since the 17th century and remains one of the most efficient types of rigs. The rig revolves around setting a triangular sail aft of the mast with the head raised to the top of the mast.
25 of the best small sailing boat designs
Assent 's performance in the 1979 Fastnet Race makes the Contessa 32 a worth entry in the 25 best small sailing boat designs list. Credit: Nic Compton. Designed by David Sadler as a bigger alternative to the popular Contessa 26, the Contessa 32 was built by Jeremy Rogers in Lymington from 1970. The yacht's credentials were established when ...
Sailing boat types: Exploring the diversity of sailboats
Schooners evoke images of grandeur and adventure, harking back to the golden age of sailing. These majestic vessels feature multiple masts, often with two or more foresails. Schooners were historically used for trade and exploration, and while modern versions retain their classic charm, they now cater to luxury cruising and charter experiences.
Type of Sails: A Comprehensive Guide to Sails
Sailing Ship Rigs: A Historical Perspective. In the era of the "golden age of sail," different sail plans were used on sailing vessels to optimize their performance and accommodate smaller crews. Fore and Aft Rig. The fore-and-aft rig, consisting of sails aligned along the length of the boat, includes popular designs like schooners and sloops.
Foresail
A foresail is a sail located forward of the mast. The luff of the sail is attached to the forestay, and the clew is usually attached to two sheets which are lead to either side of the boat.. Foresails can come in different sizes. The size of a foresail is designated by how far aft toward the mast the clew of the sail reaches.
Foresail
History Model of ancient Greek trireme with raked foresail, called artemon. Foresails set on foremasts between midships and bow were the first type of sail to appear after the mainsail which had been the sole standard rig on sailing vessels for millennia, down to classical antiquity. [3] The earliest foresail, or two-masted ship, has been identified on an Etruscan pyxis from Caere, Italy ...
Red Sea fighting traps two oil ships in Houthi waters
Two tankers, containing oil and toxic waste, are stuck in the Red Sea in the firing line between Western naval forces and Yemen's Houthi militants despite repeated efforts by the United Nations to ...
3 people are dead, several missing after migrant boat runs into trouble
The Interior Ministry says 14, 405 migrants arrived in Spain by boat between Jan. 1 and Mar. 15, up from 3,528 in the same period last year. The vast majority arrived on the Canary Island route.
China's Navy Ship Tails Philippine Coast Guard Amid Sea Spat
The Philippines said a Chinese Navy ship "shadowed" its coast guard vessel en route to a Philippines-occupied island in the South China Sea in the latest incident between the two nations ...
Dozens of Rohingya refugees rescued from overturned boat in Indian
Last year, nearly 4,500 Rohingya, two-thirds of them women and children, fled Myanmar and the refugee camps of neighbouring Bangladesh by boat, the UN refugee agency reported. Of those, 569 died ...