Types of Sailboats
Posted on Jun 03rd 2015
The most common type of small sailboat is the sloop. The rig is one mast and two sails. The mainsail is a tall, triangular sail mounted to the mast at its leading edge, with the foot of the sail along the boom extending aft. The sail in front, called the jib or sometimes the headsail, mounts on the forestay between the bow and the masthead, with its trailing corner controlled by the jib sheet.
These tall triangular sails exist on most sailboats today, known as a Bermuda rig. In most sloops, the jib reaches to the top of the masthead. Therefore, they are sometimes called masthead sloops. A small racing dinghy can have a sloop rig. It is still a Bermuda rig, but the mainsail is proportionally larger and the jib smaller, for ease of handling and maximum power. In these, the top of the jib rises only part way up the masthead, which is why they are also called fractional sloops.
While a sloop always has two sails, a cat-rigged boat generally has only one. The mast is positioned very far forward, almost at the bow, making room for a very long-footed mainsail. The mainsail of a cat rig may have a traditional boom or a loose-footed mainsail attached at the aft corner to what is called a wishbone boom. The primary advantage of a cat rig is the ease of sail handling, not having to deal with extra jib sheets when tacking. Generally a cat rig is not considered as powerful as a Bermuda rig, and therefore is not as popular. With a small boat and one sailor, a cat rig has the advantages of being simple to trim and very maneuverable when racing.
A popular rig for midsize cruising boats is the ketch, which is like a sloop with a second, smaller mast set aft, called the mizzenmast. The mizzen sail functions much like a second mainsail. A ketch carries about the same total sail area as a sloop of the equivalent size. The primary advantage of a ketch is that each of the sails is smaller than on a sloop of equivalent size, making sail handling easier.
Smaller sails are lighter, easier to hoist and trim, and smaller to stow. Having three sails also allows for more flexible sail combinations. In a strong wind, a sloop might have to double-reef the main to reduce sail area, whereas a ketch sails very well under just a jib and the mizzen. This is popularly called sailing under “jib and jigger.” Jigger is an old square-rigger term for the aft-most mast flying a triangular sail. While a ketch offers these advantages to cruisers, they may also be more expensive because of the added mast and sail. The sloop rig is also considered faster and is therefore used almost exclusively in racing sailboats.
A yawl is very similar to a ketch. The mizzenmast is smaller and set farther aft, behind the rudderpost. A ketch mizzenmast is forward of the rudderpost. Aside from this difference, the yawl and ketch rigs are similar and have similar advantages and disadvantages.
A typical schooner also has two masts or more; but the masts are positioned more forward in the boat. The forward mast is equal to or smaller than the aft mast. One or more jibs may fly forward of the foremast. While some modern schooners may use triangular, Bermuda-like sails on one or both masts, traditional schooners have gaff-rigged sails. This means at the top of the sail sits a short spar called the gaff, allowing a fourth side, or top edge of the sail, to open. Gaff-rigged schooners are known for their historic appearance and sweeping lines. The gaff rig is not as efficient as the Bermuda rig, and the rig is more complicated and requires more crew for handling the sails.
The sailors of history used a large three-mast square-rigger, flying five tiers of square sails, several headsails, and a mizzen sail. Several private and museum pieces like these exist around the word, with the rig essentially unchanged from old times. Columbus, Magellan, and the other early sea explorers sailed in square-riggers. Sadly, square sails do not sail upwind like all modern rigs discussed. This limitation led to the great trade wind sailing routes around the world being developed centuries ago.
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