Rigs

What holds the sails up and what the sails are made of. Sloop, cutter, ketch, yawl, schooner and square rig; gaff giving way to Bermuda; masts, booms, bowsprits, shrouds, ratlines and winches. Flax to cotton to Dacron to laminate to carbon, and the crab claw and battened lug rigs that never used any of them.

Part of Sailing

119 moments in this segment.

1848 - 25 ft Yawl RMG J0802. Signed William Symonds [Surveyor of the Navy, 1832-1848]. lines & profile. A yawl carries a small mizzen abaft the rudder post, where a ketch's mizzen stands forward of it. The mizzen on a yawl is a balancing sail rather than a driving one.
1864 - The brig Vision , Capt. Donovan, on her voyage from New York to London, 1864. Photographed in detail on deck, 1864. A brig carries square sails on both of its two masts. It handles well but needs a large crew for its size, which is why the type largely disappeared from commercial work before the photographic era ended.
1879 - Bermuda rigged sloop at Convict Bay ca 1879. A Bermuda rigged sloop at Convict Bay, St. George's, Bermuda, circa 1879. The Bermuda rig originated in Bermuda in the seventeenth century, developing from fore and aft boats built by a Dutch-born Bermudian whose people had adapted Moorish lateen sails, stepping yard arms in thwarts which became raked masts. The English called the result leg-of-mutton sails.
1881 - Deportatie van Napoleon naar Sint-Helena, 1815, RP-T-00-3852. Identificatie Titel(s): Deportatie van Napoleon naar Sint-Helena, 1815 De Lage Overtogt (titel op object) Objecttype: tekening. Fore and aft rigs run sloop, cutter, ketch, yawl and schooner; square and hybrid rigs run brig, brigantine, barque, barquentine and full rigged ship. The single distinction most often got wrong is ketch against yawl, decided by whether the mizzen stands forward of or abaft the rudder post.
1886 - Sloops Mayflower & Atlantic. The sloops Mayflower (Edward Burgess design, 1886) and Atlantic (Philip R. Ellsworth design, 1886), probably during the America's Cup defender selection trials. A sloop carries a mainsail and a single headsail on one mast, the commonest rig afloat. A cutter has the same single mast but multiple headsails, and was historically the rig of working boats and coastal freighters.
1889 - Yachts Verena, Chiquita & Minerva-2. Photographed under sail, 1889. Gaff rig sets a four sided fore and aft sail with a spar, the gaff, along its head. It was the standard small craft rig until triangular Bermuda sails displaced it, a change that had gone almost universal on small sailing craft by the 1900s and is visible in any before and after pair of yacht photographs.
1890 - Yachts Gossoon & Minerva. George Caspar and Charles Francis Adams' sloop Gossoon (Edward Burgess design, 1890) racing Charles H. Tweed's cutter Minerva (William Fife design, 1890) in the second race of their head-to-head series. The Gossoon the champion. Gaff rig sets a four sided fore and aft sail with a spar, the gaff, along its head. It was the standard small craft rig until triangular Bermuda sails displaced it, a change that had gone almost universal on small sailing craft by the 1900s and is visible in any before and after pair of yacht photographs.
1891 - Yachts Gracie & Barbara. America's Cup 1881 to 1885 defence candidate Gracie (Abraham A. Schank, 1868) and 46-foot cutter Barbara (William Fife, 1891), pictures racing in the Ogden Goelet Cup. A sloop sets a mainsail and a single headsail; a cutter has the same one mast but multiple headsails, which divides the fore triangle into pieces a small crew can handle.
1891 - Yachts Volunteer & Gracie-2. General Charles jackson Paine's schooner Volunteer (Edward Burgess design, 1887) fouls Joseph P. Earle's sloop Gracie (Abraham A. Schank design, 1868) in the Ogden Goelet Cup, August 7th, 1891. Volunteer leads the schooners, but may lose on a foul. A schooner carries two or more masts with the aftermost equal to or taller than the others, all fore and aft rigged. It is the rig of the yacht America, of the working coasters of both Atlantic seaboards, and of the fishing fleets that raced their catch to market.
1891 - Sloop Mischief-2. She is pictured here in Morgan Cup on August 8th, 1891, which she won in her class. Yachts at Cottage City. A sloop carries a mainsail and a single headsail on one mast, the commonest rig afloat. A cutter has the same single mast but multiple headsails, and was historically the rig of working boats and coastal freighters.
1892 - Yachts Quickstep & Gloriana. Frederick Grinnell's centerboard steel schooner Quickstep (Edward Burgess design, 1889) and Edwin Dennison Morgan's 46-foot sloop Gloriana (Nathanael Greene Herreshoff design, 1891). A schooner carries two or more masts with the aftermost equal to or taller than the others, all fore and aft rigged. It is the rig of the yacht America, of the working coasters of both Atlantic seaboards, and of the fishing fleets that raced their catch to market.
1897 - Yachts Wasp & Queen Mab. F. Lippitt's 46-footer Wasp (Nathanael Greene Herreshoff design, 1892) and Percy Chubb's 40-rater Queen Mab III (George Lennox Watson design, 1892). Gaff rig sets a four sided fore and aft sail with a spar, the gaff, along its head. It was the standard small craft rig until triangular Bermuda sails displaced it, a change that had gone almost universal on small sailing craft by the 1900s and is visible in any before and after pair of yacht photographs.
1910 - The barque Medwey and the ketch Phil Forbes. The barque Medway and the ketch Phil Forbes under full sails. A barque is square rigged on all masts except the aftermost, which is fore and aft. It was the standard deep sea cargo rig of the last commercial sailing era, used by the four masted steel windjammers of the Åland grain trade.
1912 - 'Postbode' Nederlandse marine. Photographed 1912. A sloop carries a mainsail and a single headsail on one mast, the commonest rig afloat. A cutter has the same single mast but multiple headsails, and was historically the rig of working boats and coastal freighters.
1912 - Zeilsloep met gebroken mast voor de kust van Noorwegen. Identificatie Titel(s): Zeilsloep met gebroken mast voor de kust van Noorwegen Objecttype: prent. Masts on a working square rigger are built in sections, lower mast, topmast and topgallant, each fidded into the one below so a damaged section can be sent down and replaced at sea.
1913 - RS Arne Fahlstrøm (Narve Skarpmoen). RS 29 Arne Fahlstrøm in port (possiblly Oslo) between 1913 and 1924. A ketch carries its mizzen mast forward of the rudder post, which is the distinction from a yawl, whose small mizzen sits abaft it. That single measurement is the detail most often got wrong in captions.
1914 - Kanonjolle drawing. Photographed in detail on deck, 1914. Masts on a working square rigger are built in sections, lower mast, topmast and topgallant, each fidded into the one below so a damaged section can be sent down and replaced at sea.
1920 - RS 17 Christian Børs (Norsk Selskab til Skibbrudnes Redning). Photographed 1920. Suhaili, Joshua and Guppy were all ketches.
1928 - Foto Sloep in opbouw op de werf, in spanten gezet, te Zeebrugge. Photographed as preserved, 1928. A sloop carries a mainsail and a single headsail on one mast, the commonest rig afloat. A cutter has the same single mast but multiple headsails, and was historically the rig of working boats and coastal freighters.
1937 - Corsica Classic 2013 Skylark of 1937. Photographed under sail, 1937. The spinnaker is the downwind sail, set flying from a pole and cut full. Nylon became the material for it because it is light, high in tensile strength and abrasion resistant.
1952 - Bundesarchiv Bild 183-14193-0008, Berlin, Eröffnung der Rudersaison. Photographed 1952. A cutter carries one mast with multiple headsails, which divides the fore triangle into sails a small crew can handle. It was the rig of working boats and coastal freighters before it became a cruising rig.
1955 - Nationale Zeilwedstrijden Alkmaarsemeer (Draken), Bestanddeelnr 907-2444. Photographed under sail, 1955. Ballast is high density material placed as low as possible, often in a bulb at the keel foot, to lower the centre of gravity and generate a righting moment against the heeling force on the sails. The canting keel puts that bulb to windward on a tilting fin, and entered the IMOCA class in 1998 tilting up to 38 degrees each side.
1978 - Soldaat zittend tussen twee vrouwen in een boot met op de achtergrond twee schepen. Identificatie Titel(s): Soldaat zittend tussen twee vrouwen in een boot met op de achtergrond twee schepen Objecttype: prent. Running rigging works the sails and moves; standing rigging holds the mast up and does not. Belaying pins along the rail give a square rigger a place for every one of the dozens of lines that come down from aloft.
2001 - Le harenguier Notre-Dame des Flots. Photographed as preserved, 2001. A ketch carries its mizzen mast forward of the rudder post, which is the distinction from a yawl, whose small mizzen sits abaft it. That single measurement is the detail most often got wrong in captions.
2003 - MKR Kieler Woche. Marinekutter auftakeln zur Regatta Kieler Woche 2003. A cutter carries one mast with multiple headsails, which divides the fore triangle into sails a small crew can handle. It was the rig of working boats and coastal freighters before it became a cruising rig.
2003 - MKR Kieler Woche 3. Photographed 2003. A cutter carries one mast with multiple headsails, which divides the fore triangle into sails a small crew can handle. It was the rig of working boats and coastal freighters before it became a cruising rig.
2006 - Zweimast Ewer02. Photographed alongside in port, 2006. Masts on a working square rigger are built in sections, lower mast, topmast and topgallant, each fidded into the one below so a damaged section can be sent down and replaced at sea.
2007 - Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain. Brig Lady Washington (left) and Hawaiian Chieftain in Morro Bay, California. A brig carries square sails on both of its two masts. It handles well but needs a large crew for its size, which is why the type largely disappeared from commercial work before the photographic era ended.
2008 - HMCS Oriole yankee & genoa jiggers. The yankee and genoa jiggers the HMCS Oriole (KC 480), seen while the ship was docked during the Festival of Sail San Francisco 2008. A sloop sets a mainsail and a single headsail; a cutter has the same one mast but multiple headsails, which divides the fore triangle into pieces a small crew can handle.
2009 - The Tall Ships' Races - 02-05.07.2009, Gdynia - 05-07-2009 - 113. Maybe (British ketch) at the left at the Tall Ships' Races, Gdynia 02-05.07.2009; a view from Redłowo beach. Sailcloth ran from wool on Viking longships through linen and flax, to cotton predominant in the nineteenth century and especially in America, to nylon for spinnakers, then polyester Dacron, with DuPont's Type 52 created specifically for sailcloth. Kevlar arrived from DuPont in 1971 for racing sails, Mylar film laminates in the 1970s and carbon fibre for very low stretch.
2009 - Guaneen 01. The 47-foot teak ketch was a custom design by Ted Brewer, built in 1972. 13 feet in the beam, 6-foot draft, 20 tons displacement. Port quarter view. Suhaili, Joshua and Guppy were all ketches.
2009 - Marinekutter Kieler Woche 2009. Photographed 2009. A cutter carries one mast with multiple headsails, which divides the fore triangle into sails a small crew can handle. It was the rig of working boats and coastal freighters before it became a cruising rig.
2009 - Esse 990 kite. Photographed 2009. The spinnaker is the downwind sail, set flying from a pole and cut full. Nylon became the material for it because it is light, high in tensile strength and abrasion resistant.
2009 - Foil of Alinghi V. Backbord foil of Alinghi V. Foils entered the America's Cup in 2013. The Moth is the class that made foiling normal: Brett Burvill won the 2001 Worlds on surface piercing foils and every Worlds since 2004 has been won by a foiler.
2010 - 23 ft Yawl RMG J0801. Signed by Henry Peake [Master Shipwright, Deptford Dockyard, 1803 -1806; Surveyor of the Navy, 1806-1822]. lines & profile. A yawl carries a small mizzen abaft the rudder post, where a ketch's mizzen stands forward of it. The mizzen on a yawl is a balancing sail rather than a driving one.
2010 - 22 ft Yawl RMG J0803. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth with deck detail for a 22 ft Yawl. lines & profile. A yawl carries a small mizzen abaft the rudder post, where a ketch's mizzen stands forward of it. The mizzen on a yawl is a balancing sail rather than a driving one.
2010 - 26 ft Yawl RMG J0795. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for a 6-oared 26 ft Yawl. lines & profile. A yawl carries a small mizzen abaft the rudder post, where a ketch's mizzen stands forward of it. The mizzen on a yawl is a balancing sail rather than a driving one.
2010 - Schepen met gewapende bemanning in een haven Illustraties vaderlandse geschiedenis (serie. Identificatie Titel(s): Schepen met gewapende bemanning in een haven. Illustraties vaderlandse geschiedenis (serietitel) Objecttype: prent. Fore and aft rigs run sloop, cutter, ketch, yawl and schooner; square and hybrid rigs run brig, brigantine, barque, barquentine and full rigged ship. The single distinction most often got wrong is ketch against yawl, decided by whether the mizzen stands forward of or abaft the rudder post.
2010 - Second Day Of The Dublin Maritime Festival (2010). Photographed 2010. Running rigging works the sails and moves; standing rigging holds the mast up and does not. Belaying pins along the rail give a square rigger a place for every one of the dozens of lines that come down from aloft.
2010 - Bessie Ellen (one of the last surviving West Country trading ketchs). Photographed under sail, 2010. Suhaili, Joshua and Guppy were all ketches.
2010 - Straßentransport H-Boot. Photographed 2010. Ballast is high density material placed as low as possible, often in a bulb at the keel foot, to lower the centre of gravity and generate a righting moment against the heeling force on the sails. The canting keel puts that bulb to windward on a tilting fin, and entered the IMOCA class in 1998 tilting up to 38 degrees each side.
2010 - SY Bies z dwoma fokami. SY Bies with two foresails (normal and storm) in Bergen. A sloop sets a mainsail and a single headsail; a cutter has the same one mast but multiple headsails, which divides the fore triangle into pieces a small crew can handle.
2011 - 23&30 ottobre 2011. Palermo vista dal Mare | 23&30 ottobre 2011. The Bermuda rig originated in Bermuda in the seventeenth century, developing from fore and aft boats built by a Dutch-born Bermudian whose people had adapted Moorish lateen sails, stepping yard arms in thwarts which became raked masts. The English called the result leg-of-mutton sails.
2011 - ANMM Small Vessels. Photographed as preserved, 2011. A barque is square rigged on all masts except the aftermost, which is fore and aft. It was the standard deep sea cargo rig of the last commercial sailing era, used by the four masted steel windjammers of the Åland grain trade.
2012-05-28 - Junk.dinghy.one.MP4. First test sail of a junk rig fitted to a dinghy. The junk rig carries full-length battens that divide the sail into panels, so reefing is a matter of dropping panels onto the boom rather than tying anything down. It is unusual on a boat this small.
2012 - Balatonkenese - 2012. június 23 -án készült Balatonkenesén, a Vak Bottyán strandon illetve a Tátorjánosból illetve kilátóból. Megjelent Creative Commons alatt a Metapolisz DVD sorozatban. Sailcloth ran from wool on Viking longships through linen and flax, to cotton predominant in the nineteenth century and especially in America, to nylon for spinnakers, then polyester Dacron, with DuPont's Type 52 created specifically for sailcloth. Kevlar arrived from DuPont in 1971 for racing sails, Mylar film laminates in the 1970s and carbon fibre for very low stretch.
2012 - Gotland Runt, the AF Offshore Race 3 2012. Gotland Runt, today called the AF Offshore Race, from Stockholm around Gotland and back to Sandhamn. The spinnaker is the downwind sail, set flying from a pole and cut full. Nylon became the material for it because it is light, high in tensile strength and abrasion resistant.
2012-08-01 - Sailing - Code 0 von Beilken auf einer mak7.AVI. A Beilken code zero tested on a mak7. The code zero is a flat, furling reaching sail that fills the gap between a genoa and a spinnaker, and it is trimmed much closer to the centreline than a downwind sail. Filmed by Tactix Yachting Solutions in German.
2012-11-24 - The lateen sail. The lateen rig as it is sailed on the Albufera lagoon at Valencia. The Albufera's flat-bottomed boats carry a single lateen sail on a short mast, a rig that survives on this water long after it went out of general use. Filmed for the Valencia city council.
2012-12-18 - Heavy sailing conditions.. A long unedited run of heavy weather sailing, with the boat worked through big water. Footage of this kind is rare because heavy weather is when a crew has least attention to spare for a camera. Nearly seventy minutes with no commentary.
2013 - Old ketch. Photographed 2013. A ketch carries its mizzen mast forward of the rudder post, which is the distinction from a yawl, whose small mizzen sits abaft it. That single measurement is the detail most often got wrong in captions.
2013 - De haveningang van Willemstad met het Gouvernementspaleis, NG-2013-20. Photographed alongside in port, 2013. Fore and aft rigs run sloop, cutter, ketch, yawl and schooner; square and hybrid rigs run brig, brigantine, barque, barquentine and full rigged ship. The single distinction most often got wrong is ketch against yawl, decided by whether the mizzen stands forward of or abaft the rudder post.
2013 - Sailing on harbour. Photographed alongside in port, 2013. G. Hunt demonstrated in the 1820s that a Bermuda rigged sloop outperformed the traditional schooners.
2013 - Storbåt AURA. Storbat AURA is a replica of a fishingboat used in Finnish Archipelago 1600 - 1930 and it was launched 2011. A square rigged mast carries its sails in tiers, course, topsail, topgallant and royal, each handed from the yard by crew standing on footropes. The Tall Ships Races require at least half of each crew to be aged 15 to 25, so most of the people on those yards are learning.
2013 - Lake Windermere MMB 18 MV Swan. Looking west over Lake Windermere from a private beach in Windermere. The MV Swan is visible sailing south. The spinnaker is the downwind sail, set flying from a pole and cut full. Nylon became the material for it because it is light, high in tensile strength and abrasion resistant.
2013-06-16 - Reefing Mainsail in Heavy Weather - SailingApp. Main and jib reefed in a squall during a charter in the British Virgin Islands. Reefing while already overpowered is harder than reefing before the wind arrives, which is what the footage shows. The boat is put through the manoeuvre with the squall on top of her.
2013-07-09 - How to hoist a spinnaker safely and easily | Yachting World. Pip Hare walks through a spinnaker hoist, part ten of a Yachting World series on advanced technique. A spinnaker is set flying, without a luff attached to a stay, so the order in which halyard, sheets and guy come under load decides whether the hoist is clean. Hare went on to sail the Vendee Globe in 2020 and 2024.
2014-01-03 - How to reef quickly and easily – Skip Novak's Storm Sailing. Skip Novak shows a reefing method for sailing in 35 knots, part five of his Storm Sailing Techniques series for Yachting World. Novak sailed four Whitbread races and has run high latitude charters aboard Pelagic since 1987. The point of the sequence is that reefing early is easier than reefing late.
2014-03-27 - In Mast Furling Instruction Video. David and Phil of San Diego Boatworks explain the in-mast furling system fitted to many cruising boats. In-mast furling rolls the mainsail into a slot in the spar, which trades sail shape and a jamming risk for the ability to reduce sail without leaving the cockpit. The demonstration covers what to do when the sail will not roll.
2014-04-13 - Chinese Junk (1961). Rear Admiral Cobb hoists the sail of Sea Dragon, a Chinese junk built entirely in Hong Kong, on Penton Hook Yacht Basin at Chertsey in 1961. Pathe reports that junks were being brought to Britain in numbers for pleasure sailing. The film shows the modifications made for use on the Thames.
2014 - Beluga II, Kommandobrücke (Greenpeace). Photographed 2014. Sailcloth ran from wool on Viking longships through linen and flax, to cotton predominant in the nineteenth century and especially in America, to nylon for spinnakers, then polyester Dacron, with DuPont's Type 52 created specifically for sailcloth. Kevlar arrived from DuPont in 1971 for racing sails, Mylar film laminates in the 1970s and carbon fibre for very low stretch.
2014 - Le harenguier Notre-Dame des Flots. Photographed as preserved, 2014. Suhaili, Joshua and Guppy were all ketches.
2015 - Lake Union pano 01. S. Eastlake and Capitol Hill in background. A schooner carries two or more masts with the aftermost equal to or taller than the others, all fore and aft rigged. It is the rig of the yacht America, of the working coasters of both Atlantic seaboards, and of the fishing fleets that raced their catch to market.
2015 - Wörthersee Kärnten. Photographed under sail, 2015. A sloop sets a mainsail and a single headsail; a cutter has the same one mast but multiple headsails, which divides the fore triangle into pieces a small crew can handle.
2015 - S-Y Blue Marlin. fi/. G. Hunt demonstrated in the 1820s that a Bermuda rigged sloop outperformed the traditional schooners.
2015-07-17 - Raising the Catalina 22 Mast Without a Gin Pole. A Catalina 22 mast raised without a gin pole, using a homemade mast stepper and the mainsheet for purchase. A gin pole is the usual lever for standing a trailer sailer's mast, and doing without one means finding the purchase elsewhere. The Catalina 22 was in production from 1969 and is one of the most numerous small cruisers built.
2016-03-15 - Cap'n Fatty Goodlander: Ketch vs Sloop. Gary Goodlander weighs ketch against sloop for a cruising boat, writing as Cap'n Fatty for Cruising World. He has circumnavigated several times, mostly shorthanded. His argument turns on handling and on how a rig behaves when a crew is tired rather than on speed.
2016 - "Saginaw", Miss M.Di Plesso LOC. 1920] 1 negative: glass; 5 x 7 in. or smaller. Sailcloth ran from wool on Viking longships through linen and flax, to cotton predominant in the nineteenth century and especially in America, to nylon for spinnakers, then polyester Dacron, with DuPont's Type 52 created specifically for sailcloth. Kevlar arrived from DuPont in 1971 for racing sails, Mylar film laminates in the 1970s and carbon fibre for very low stretch.
2016 - Guadeloupe dynamique 2. The GUADELOUPE DYNAMIQUE starting the Transat Québec to Saint-Malo race. G. Hunt demonstrated in the 1820s that a Bermuda rigged sloop outperformed the traditional schooners.
2016 - Guadeloupe dynamique 1. GUADELOUPE DYNAMIQUE au départ de la Transat Québec-Saint-Malo. The Bermuda rig originated in Bermuda in the seventeenth century, developing from fore and aft boats built by a Dutch-born Bermudian whose people had adapted Moorish lateen sails, stepping yard arms in thwarts which became raked masts. The English called the result leg-of-mutton sails.
2016 - Guadeloupe dynamique 3. GUADELOUPE DYNAMIQUE au départ de la Transat Québec-Saint-Malo. G. Hunt demonstrated in the 1820s that a Bermuda rigged sloop outperformed the traditional schooners.
2016-07-21 - Lateen sailing boats racing (Trofeo Donna Franca) at Favignana (Trapani - Sicily) July 2016. Lateen rigged boats race for the Trofeo Donna Franca at Favignana, off Trapani in Sicily, in July 2016. Sicilian lateen racing keeps a working rig alive as a competitive class. The boats are handled by crews who must pass the yard around the mast at every tack.
2016-12-06 - How Sails Are Made - Behind the Scenes at the MEGA Loft with North Sails. A walk through a North Sails loft, showing how a sail is made from the floor up. Sail lofts need floor area more than anything else, because a sail is laid out flat at full size before it is finished. Filmed for the Royal Yachting Association.
2017 - MAYBE (1930s DUTCH SAILING KETCH LEAVING DUBLIN PORT)- - Flickr - infomatique. Photographed alongside in port, 2017. A ketch carries its mizzen mast forward of the rudder post, which is the distinction from a yawl, whose small mizzen sits abaft it. That single measurement is the detail most often got wrong in captions.
2017-07-17 - RUS 991 Akela Bies VLO-103 Zvezda at Pier in Port Noblessner Tallinn 17 July 2017. Photographed alongside in port, 2017. Masts on a working square rigger are built in sections, lower mast, topmast and topgallant, each fidded into the one below so a damaged section can be sent down and replaced at sea.
2017-08-02 - Model of a galeas, MS, 2017-08-02. Model_of_a ketch "Model_of_a ketch" "Galeas modellje a 20. századból". Fore and aft rigs run sloop, cutter, ketch, yawl and schooner; square and hybrid rigs run brig, brigantine, barque, barquentine and full rigged ship. The single distinction most often got wrong is ketch against yawl, decided by whether the mizzen stands forward of or abaft the rudder post.
2018-08-05 - How to Step and Raise The Mast on a Catalina 22 Sailboat. A dry run of stepping and raising the mast on a Catalina 22 before the boat goes to the water for the first time. Rehearsing on the trailer is how trailer sailors find a fouled halyard or a missing pin before it matters. The Catalina 22 has been built since 1969.
2019-02-11 - Different Sailboat Rigs Explained (Tall Ship, Gaff). A walk through the mast configurations that separate one rig from another, from sloop to square rigger, and the question of why square rig fell out of use. Square sails drive well downwind and poorly upwind, which is what ended them once ships stopped following the trade winds. The examples run from small cruising boats up to tall ships.
2019-05-23 - Why Two MASTS? [Ketches vs Yawls] | Sailing Wisdom. The distinction between ketch and yawl comes down to where the aft mast stands: forward of the rudder post makes a ketch, aft of it makes a yawl. A schooner reverses the proportions, with the taller mast aft. The Rigging Doctor also covers what a second mast gives a boat off the wind.
2019-07-27 - A Boat With Wings? | SailGP Explained. Chris Draper, wing trimmer and CEO of the Great Britain SailGP Team, explains how the F50 catamaran's 24 metre rigid wingsail works. A rigid wing is trimmed by changing its camber in sections rather than by easing a sheet. SailGP was founded in 2018 and races one-design F50s.
2019-07-27 - How To Sail: Sail Trim Basics -- Sailing Basics Video Series. Sail trim basics from Nautilus Sailing's beginner series, covering how far in or out a sail should be set for a given course. Trim is judged by easing until the sail luffs and then coming back in, a method that works without instruments. Part of a monohull sailing course for newcomers.
2020-02-19 - Ketch Rig vs Sloop: Great Advantages for Cruisers. A short case for the ketch rig for offshore cruising, set against the Bermuda sloop. A ketch splits the same sail area between a main and a mizzen, so each sail is smaller and easier for a short crew to handle, at the cost of windward performance. The mizzen also lets a boat be balanced under reduced canvas.
2020-03-09 - Rigging Explained: Standing & Running (Sailboat Parts Explained). Standing and running rigging explained with a 3D model and diagrams, part three of a series on sailboat parts. Standing rigging is the fixed wire that stays the mast; running rigging is everything hauled to set, trim or reduce sail. The model lets each piece be shown in place rather than described.
2020-05-20 - Rigging for beginners # 1. Sailboat rigging explained from standing rigging to running rigging.. A beginner's guide to the split between standing rigging, which holds the mast up and does not move, and running rigging, which is hauled to set and trim the sails. The video covers sails, lines, jammers and winches. First in a series from searching for coconuts.
2020 - Bavaria C42, Interboot 2020, Friedrichshafen (IB200058). Photographed under sail, 2020. Ballast is high density material placed as low as possible, often in a bulb at the keel foot, to lower the centre of gravity and generate a righting moment against the heeling force on the sails. The canting keel puts that bulb to windward on a tilting fin, and entered the IMOCA class in 1998 tilting up to 38 degrees each side.
2020-08-07 - Gunter rigged sailboat. Gaff or Gunter rig? What works best?. A comparison of gaff and gunter rigs on a small cruising dinghy, with the sails lashed to the spars, the rig raised, and reefing shown. A gunter's yard swings nearly vertical against the mast so the whole rig stows inside the boat's length, which is what makes it a trailer sailer's rig. The presenter traces the gunter's origins before rigging his own boat, Moonlight.
2020-10-25 - Lateen Sail How it Works, Rigging and Sailing.. A lateen sail is rigged and sailed on a catraio, one of the small traditional Tagus river boats kept by a Portuguese sailing club. The lateen sets a long yard at a steep angle on a short mast, and the yard has to be handed around the mast on each tack. This boat spent decades in a warehouse before restoration.
2020-11-22 - Siren 17 - Stepping the Mast and Rigging Solo. Step-by-step method for raising the mast and rigging a Siren 17 single-handed. Trailer sailers step their own masts at the ramp, so the sequence of halyards, shrouds and forestay has to be workable by one person. The presenter revises his own technique partway through, taking the slack out of the jib halyards before going forward to the headstay.
2020-12-06 - Code Zero Sailing. A code zero set for cruising rather than racing, and what it adds in light air. The sail is more than twice the size of the boat's non-overlapping jibs and the owner claims two to three knots from it. A code zero is a flat reaching sail set on a furler, sitting between a genoa and an asymmetric spinnaker.
2021-01-30 - The Rig & Sailplan (Rebuilding Tally Ho / EP90). Episode 90 opens with a survey of yacht rigs in general, using boats around Port Townsend to show how sloops, cutters, ketches, yawls and schooners are told apart, then narrows to Tally Ho's own sail plan. The crew do detective work on how her rig was altered over her working life before settling the shape of the new one. Tally Ho was designed by Albert Strange and launched in 1910.
2021-02-05 - What is the twin skin mainsail? North Sails explains.. North Sails and Emirates Team New Zealand sail designer Burns Fallow explain the AC75's twin skin mainsail, a double-surfaced sail that behaves as a soft wing. Fallow says the concept was settled during rulemaking after the 2017 Cup, before the hull shape was fixed. The AC75 was the class used for the America's Cup from 2021.
2021-02-28 - DIY SAILBOAT RIGGING (Sta-Lok Self-Fit Terminals) | Log 6. Twenty-nine year old staysail rigging is replaced with Sta-Lok self-fit terminals on quarter-inch 1x19 stainless wire. Self-fit terminals let an owner make up standing rigging without a swaging machine, by clamping a cone into the wire strands. The presenters say plainly they are not professional riggers.
2021-05-05 - What is 3Di Sail Technology? North Sails explains.. North Sails explain 3Di, their moulded sail construction, built from spread filament tapes laid over a three-dimensional shape rather than from panels of cloth sewn together. The claim made here is that a moulded sail holds its designed shape longer than a panelled one. Episode four of the company's explainer series.
2021-08-10 - Lateen sail Maneuvering. Cilicia uses her symmetric lateen sail to manoeuvre and settle on course. Cilicia is a replica of a thirteenth century trading ship of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, built in Yerevan. The footage shows the yard being worked rather than the sail simply drawing.
2021-08-12 - Sailing a Thomas Colvin CHINESE JUNK RIG SCHOONER in the Georgian Bay [Ep 154]. A sail aboard SV Sea Dragon, a Chinese junk rigged schooner designed by Thomas Colvin, in Georgian Bay. Colvin drew a series of junk rigged cruising boats in steel and aluminium from the 1960s onward, arguing the rig was easier to handle shorthanded than a Bermudan sloop. The crew filming are sloop sailors meeting the rig for the first time.
2022 - Zoutelande (NL), Strand, Blick auf die Nordsee -- 2022 -- 4984. View from the beach to the Western Scheldt (with s sailboat at sunset), Zoutelande, Zeeland, Netherlands. The Bermuda rig originated in Bermuda in the seventeenth century, developing from fore and aft boats built by a Dutch-born Bermudian whose people had adapted Moorish lateen sails, stepping yard arms in thwarts which became raked masts. The English called the result leg-of-mutton sails.
2022-12-02 - Serve and Protect, Prepping the Shrouds - Episode 242 - Acorn to Arabella: Journey of a Wooden Boat. Deck work on Arabella covers turning a square wooden spar round and serving the galvanised shrouds. Serving means binding a wire with light line over a layer of tar and parcelling, and it is what keeps galvanised standing rigging from rusting where water sits. Episode 242 of the Acorn to Arabella build.
2023-01-10 - Inside the latest generation IMOCA60 - Malizia. Will Harris gives a full tour of Boris Herrmann's IMOCA 60 Malizia shortly after her launch, at the point when fully crewed IMOCA racing was new territory. The boat was drawn for one sailor and had to be worked out again with five aboard. Malizia Seaexplorer was launched in 2022 and raced The Ocean Race in 2022 and 2023.
2023-05-04 - Rigging 101 (Part 1). The first of two parts on rigging, following a full re-rig of Fair Isle, a cutter rigged Hans Christian. The argument is that most of rigging inspection is common sense and within an owner's reach, rather than specialist work. Standing rigging fails from corrosion and fatigue at the terminals, which is where the checking goes.
2023-05-15 - DIY sailboat rigging, save thousands! (Learning By Doing Ep224). An owner replaces standing rigging that was more than twenty years old, doing most of the work himself, and gives the final cost. Standing rigging is generally replaced on age rather than on appearance, because wire fails inside the terminals where it cannot be seen. Episode 224 of Learning By Doing.
2023-05-30 - Weighing and measuring an IMOCA keel. Pip Hare's IMOCA 60 keel is lifted out and weighed at the end of a refit. An IMOCA's canting keel swings to windward to hold the boat upright, and its bulb weight is checked against the class rule. The clip was filmed a few weeks before the refit finished in 2023.
2023-08-11 - Navigating Arabella Up Two Tricky Rivers - Episode 276 - Acorn to Arabella: Journey of a Wooden Boat. Arabella finishes a passage from Provincetown to Gloucester, then takes the Annisquam River, the inland cut linking Gloucester Harbor to Ipswich Bay, calling for bridge openings for the first time. She then enters the Merrimack, a river whose rocks and bar make it difficult water for any boat. Episode 276 of the series.
2023-09-22 - Riding Out The Storm, Hurricane Lee - Episode 282 - Acorn to Arabella: Journey of a Wooden Boat. Robin and Steve ride out Hurricane Lee aboard Arabella in Pulpit Harbor on North Haven Island, Maine, in September 2023. Lee was downgraded to a tropical storm before it reached them, but the anchorage was chosen for protection from all directions with northeast winds forecast. Choosing shelter by wind direction rather than by comfort is the whole of storm anchoring.
2023-10-28 - Stepping the MAST!. Tally Ho gets a mast for the first time in decades in episode 169, and then it comes back out again. Trial fits are normal on a rebuild, since the step, the partners and the standing rigging all have to be checked against each other before anything is final. Tally Ho was built in 1910 to an Albert Strange design.
2023-11-11 - Tally Ho has a rig! (Rebuilding a wooden boat). Episode 171 of the Tally Ho rebuild finally steps the mast, after work on the spreaders and on brackets for the radar, VHF and lights. Tally Ho is the 1910 Albert Strange gaff cutter that Leo Sampson Goolden has been rebuilding on camera since 2017. Stepping a mast is the point where a hull becomes a sailing boat again.
2023-12-08 - Break Another Little Piece Of My Boat - Episode 291 - Acorn to Arabella: Journey of a Wooden Boat. Winter work aboard Arabella continues with a diesel heater installation, then the boat starts south with a short hop from Camden to Rockland where a storm adds to the repair list. Arabella is a 38-foot wooden sailboat built by amateur builders in Granby, Massachusetts. Episode 291 of the series.
2024-03-11 - Understanding Telltales. Ask Precision Sails.. How to read telltales, the light ribbons attached to a sail that show whether air is flowing smoothly across it. When the leeward telltale stalls the sail is over-trimmed, and when the windward one lifts it is under-trimmed. Precision Sails walk through the corrections.
2024-07-21 - Exploring the Gaff Sail: Components, Differences from Bermuda Sails, and Hoisting Techniques. A close look at a gaff mainsail, naming its parts and setting it against the more common Bermuda sail, then hoisting and reefing it. A gaff sail carries a spar along its head, which needs two halyards rather than one and gives a four-sided sail instead of a triangle. Under brown sails demonstrates the sequence aboard her own boat.
2024-08-10 - \"Look Ma, no hands!\" ...Sailing North with self-steering & Jackyard Topsail!. Tally Ho sails north up the inside coast of Vancouver Island, hoisting her jackyard topsail for the first time and testing her self-steering gear. A jackyard topsail sets on a small spar above the gaff, filling the triangle a gaff rig otherwise leaves empty, and it is the highest and fussiest sail on the boat. The passage also takes the crew through tidal rapids.
2024-11-22 - Down The River and To the Sea - Episode 322 - Acorn to Arabella: Journey of a Wooden Boat. Arabella sails from Boothbay to Gloucester in heavy winds with humpbacks alongside, then motors to the mouth of the Cape Cod Canal and waits at Sandwich. The leg takes her back toward Mattapoisett, where she was launched about eighteen months earlier. Episode 322 of the Acorn to Arabella series.
2024-11-29 - Sailing Out of Buzzards Bay - Episode 323 - Acorn to Arabella: Journey of a Wooden Boat. Steve adds safety lines to Arabella's boom and fits whisker poles, which hold a headsail out square when the wind is dead behind. The crew are preparing to sail from Buzzards Bay toward Delaware and then Puerto Rico. Poling out a sail is the standard answer to a headsail that collapses in the mainsail's wind shadow.
2025-01-24 - Will We Ever Get A Break From The Cold?? - Episode 331 - Acorn to Arabella: Journey of a Wooden Boat. Steve tenders across to the schooner Hindu to lend a stern anchor and extra line to a friend waiting out a blow, then he and Robin sit American Sailing Association certification classes. Lending ground tackle between boats in an anchorage is ordinary practice when one crew is short of scope. Episode 331.
2025-02-28 - The 3 Best Decisions I Made While Building My Own Sailboat. Steve Denette runs through the three decisions he rates highest from building the 38-foot wooden sailboat Arabella, among them the pattern maker's vice and workbench that carried the rigging work. Arabella was built by amateurs in Granby, Massachusetts, and the series has followed her from timber to water. The reasoning here is about tools and access rather than about the boat's lines.
2025-03-17 - CHARLES W. MORGAN downriging. Fore yards down in 90 min elapsed time #ships #rigging #maritime. Mystic Seaport's rigging crew brings the fore yards down off the whaleship Charles W. Morgan, the whole job compressed into ninety minutes of elapsed time. The Morgan was launched at New Bedford in 1841 and is the last wooden whaleship afloat. Sending yards down is annual winter work on a square rigger, and it is the reverse of the sequence used to cross them in spring.
2025-06-01 - 🟢🔴 Inflatable Sails: MODX-70 Catamaran and Aeroforce, the future of sailing?. The MODX 70, an electric catamaran that replaces its sails with two automated inflatable Aeroforce wings that rotate through 360 degrees and trim themselves. Inflatable wings aim to give a wing's efficiency without the storage problem of a rigid one. Nautimundo walks through how they differ from a conventional rig.
2025-09-20 - Sailing into SF city to fix TALLY HO’s damaged mast. Tally Ho sails into San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge and is hosted at the Spaulding Marine Center, whose machine shop is used to make brass strips to protect the mast from chafe. Chafe where a gaff or a sail bears on the spar is a constant problem on a traditional rig, and metal strips are the traditional cure. This is episode 228 of the rebuild series.
2025-09-26 - Sailing to Newfoundland and Finding the Greatest Rescue Story Ever. Steve and Robin take Arabella across the Cabot Strait toward her winter home at Corner Brook, Newfoundland, arriving at Isle aux Morts. The strait is known for fast and unpredictable water, and the crossing costs them a sleepless night. Isle aux Morts carries its own rescue history, which the episode turns to on arrival.
2026-07-17 - Sailboat Parts Explained. A sailing school in Sarasota names the parts of a sailboat, from bow and stern through the standing and running rigging. The vocabulary matters because instructions on a boat are given by part name and have to be acted on immediately. Made for students at the Sail2Learn school.
2026-08-13 - Canoe Sailing: using a Crab Claw Sail and Outrigger (Part 2 or series). Ray Goodwin films Peter's open canoe rigged with Austronesian crab claw sails and an outrigger, filmed over three days with the Open Canoe Sailing Group. In parts of the Pacific a canoe was not tacked but shunted, with the point of the sail moved from one end to the other so bow and stern swapped and the steering moved with them. Second in a series on specialist rigs for sailing canoes.