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How Sails Work: Understanding the Basics

Table of Contents

Last Updated on September 1, 2023 by Boatsetter Team

Sailing is all about physics and geometry but don’t worry, it’s not too hard to learn. Once the theory is down, it’s all a matter of practice. Let’s look at what sails are and how they work.

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Aerodynamics, hydrodynamics & modern sails

Sails work like airplane wings, except they’re vertical rather than horizontal. As the wind hits the front of a curved sail, it splits, passing on both the downwind (leeward) side and upwind (windward) side.

The leeward wind travels farther due to the curvature of the sail and creates a low-pressure area while the windward wind travels a shorter distance and reaches the aft end faster – together, they create aerodynamic lift that “pulls” the boat forward .

The keel or centerboard in the water below the hull prevents the boat from being pushed sideways. With the lift of the sails and the lateral push or hydrodynamics of the keel, the boat is propelled forward. Where the wind concentrates force in the sails is called the center of effort, while the keel below is called the center of lateral resistance.

Most modern sailboats have a forward (or headsail) and a mainsail. The headsail may be called a genoa, jib, or staysail (different sizes) and is attached at the top of the mast and leads down at an angle to the bow . It’s controlled by lines called sheets. The mainsail is supported by the mast and is attached at the bottom to a lateral spar called the boom.

Parts of a sail

Sails come in various shapes, but for our purposes, we will focus on modern, triangular sails. The top of the sail is called the head , and the bottom is the foot. The forward end of the foot is the tack, and the aft end is the clew. The forward edge of the sail is the luff, and the aft end is the leach.

Telltales or short strands of yarn are often attached near the leading edge of a sail to help with sail trim. The shape of the sail is ideal when the strands on both sides are streaming back at the same level, which indicates that wind is moving evenly along both sides of the sail.

READ MORE: Parts of a Sailboat

Points of sail

A boat cannot sail directly into the wind– instead, it sails at an angle to the true breeze. Close hauled is roughly 45 degrees off the wind, close reach is 60 degrees, beam reach is at 90 degrees, and a broad reach is approximately 150 degrees off the wind.

When moving directly or dead downwind, a boat is said to be running, and when the bow is pointed into the wind, that’s called being in irons. A boat cannot sail in irons and can be hard to control when running. When sails begin to luff at the leading edge, the boat is trying to sail too close to the wind and will stall.

Tacking and jibing (gybing)

A boat changes direction by either tacking or jibing. Sailing upwind, a boat tacks when the bow passes through the eye of the wind until the boat is sailing on the opposite side or “tack” creating a zig-zag course. When sailing downwind, the boat jibes when passing the stern through the wind.

Turning upwind is called heading up and turning away, or downwind is falling off. When the wind passes over the starboard rail first, you’re on a starboard tack and vice versa.

Pro Tip: You can learn how to sail without owning a sailboat. Find a sailboat rental near you , then book! You can save that boat listing and book again to continue practicing.

Sail shape & angle

Boats sail in true wind (the wind that is actually blowing at a given speed and angle) by they’re actually responding to the apparent wind (the angle and speed of the breeze that is felt once the boat is moving). The wind always changes speed and angle, so sails must be adjusted or trimmed in response to the boat to maintain optimal speed.

When sailing upwind, the sails are sheeted in (made flatter by pulling in the sheet lines) to create better foils and greater lift or pull. When sailing downwind, sails are usually loosened or let out to create a “belly” and adjusted to be as perpendicular to the angle of the wind as possible.

Sheeting in (bringing the sails closer to the centerline) enables the boat to point higher (sail closer to the true wind) while easing out (loosening the aft end of the sail) creates more power when the wind is aft like around the beam or broad reach.

A boat is more likely to heel when sheeted in and sailing upwind. Excessive healing doesn’t mean the boat is traveling faster. In fact, it may just be getting overpowered and becoming less efficient than if the sails were trimmed properly.

In high winds, shorten or reef sails so the boat doesn’t become overpowered and potentially dangerous. Reefing is done at the tack and clue or the forward and aft parts of the foot of the sail. There may be 1-3 pre-rigged reefing points controlled by reefing lines, so the sails can be made as small as necessary to keep the boat from heeling too far.

Easy to learn

Trimming sails takes time to master; let sails out until they luff or flap, and then sheet in until you feel the boat pick up speed. Smaller boats react quickly to each adjustment and are better for new sailors to learn on than large boats that take a minute to speed up or slow down. Once you’ve mastered the theory, you may spend years perfecting your sailing skills.

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Zuzana Prochazka is an award-winning freelance journalist and photographer with regular contributions to more than a dozen sailing and powerboating magazines and online publications including Southern Boating, SEA, Latitudes & Attitudes and SAIL. She is SAIL magazines Charter Editor and the Executive Director of Boating Writers International. Zuzana serves as judge for SAIL’s Best Boats awards and for Europe’s Best of Boats in Berlin. 

A USCG 100 Ton Master, Zuzana founded and manages a flotilla charter organization called Zescapes that takes guests adventure sailing at destinations worldwide. 

Zuzana has lived in Europe, Africa and the United States and has traveled extensively in South America, the islands of the South Pacific and Mexico. 

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What’s In A Rig? – Wingsail

By: Pat Reynolds Sailboat Rigs , Sailboats

What’s in a Rig Series # 8 – The Wingsail

Although wingsails or rigid wings have risen to the limelight in the contemporary sailing world with the America’s Cup now employing the technology across the board, they are in no way a brand new concept. A sail, after all, in its purest form is essentially a wing. So, through the decades, many designers, looking for optimum performance, have of course instituted rigid wings (just like that of an airplane). A notable example would be the so called Little America’s Cup, a long-standing catamaran contest based around the pursuit of pure speed.

The efficiency of a hard wing has never been in question. They sail upwind higher and reach faster. Their purity of engineering allows for maximum proficiency. When compared to a solid wing, a soft sail is full of hard to manage variables. The shape, components and accompanying systems are no match for a wingsail. In many ways, a conventional sailboat rig is fighting against itself to do what it’s meant to do. Shrouds and stays are battling to keep everything in place while a sailor adjusts control lines incessantly. It’s not perfect. However, the relative practicality is another issue. A very large unbending non-folding solid structure has its obvious drawbacks. How do you stow this thing when you’re done sailing and how do you reef it if the breeze starts blowing and, for the traditionalists, where’s the romance in a big airplane wing sticking up from the front of the boat?

Before we address those questions, let’s look at how this rig works. Using the America’s Cup boats as great examples, a wingsail itself is usually composed of two parts and the surrounding system is essentially three ingredients.

The sail has a forward and trailing element. The trailing element is like the flaps on an airplane wing and the angle between the two elements is called camber. Increasing the camber (angle) produces power. If the power becomes too much, which it often does, another control system comes into play that deals with “twist”. Twist allows the ability to depower the boat by twisting the wing so wind can spill off.

After camber and twist, the third major aspect of control on these quite simple wing setups is the mainsheet. Like a normal mainsheet, it lets the sail out, but unlike a soft sail, a rigid wing doesn’t power up downwind, which is why soft genoas are often part of the sailplan.

So, without argument wingsails are more efficient engines, but, as we stated, are not nearly as practical as soft sails. Are you sensing the idea of a hybrid coming around the bend? Yes, in fact, world renown cruising boat manufacturer Beneteau has been developing just such an innovation. They have a soft wingsail prototype installed on a production boat that blends the two concepts. It’s made of cloth so it can be broken down like a traditional scale but is, in every other way, a wingsail. It’s an unstayed mast with an airplane style wing that they say behaves very much like its rigid cousin.

So, lets revisit the particular questions we asked earlier and make sure we answered them. How is the wingsail reefed? By adjusting the aforementioned twist control, a wingsai is depowered, thereby reefed. How can this big wing thing be stowed? Well, with this hybrid idea, it’s lazy jacks and sail covers – we know how that works.

The last question is more difficult to answer…where’s the romance? The feeling, sounds and shape that soft sails embody date so far back into our collective history, it’s a bit heartbreaking to think they could possibly be replaced. There’s a certain humanity…a beauty and art involved in harnessing these inherent imperfections. We share this struggle and achievement with those who sailed before us. We have continually developed materials, hardware and better systems to get an edge, and are always happy when we succeed, but a radical refit, should it happen on a grand scale, is sort of jarring and sad.

Alas, this is the quandary of technology and advancement. Change bringth and taketh away. But don’t worry too much about it – in this modern day it seems 18-year old yellow, fading Dacron sails hung about on aging wires are still representing strong!

What's in a Rig Series:

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How a Sail Works: Basic Aerodynamics

The more you learn about how a sail works, the more you start to really appreciate the fundamental structure and design used for all sailboats.

It can be truly fascinating that many years ago, adventurers sailed the oceans and seas with what we consider now to be basic aerodynamic and hydrodynamic theory.

When I first heard the words “aerodynamic and hydrodynamic theory” when being introduced to how a sail works in its most fundamental form, I was a bit intimidated.

“Do I need to take a physics 101 course?” However, it turns out it can be explained in very intuitive ways that anyone with a touch of curiosity can learn.

Wherever possible, I’ll include not only intuitive descriptions of the basic aerodynamics of how a sail works, but I’ll also include images to illustrate these points.

There are a lot of fascinating facts to learn, so let’s get to it!

Basic Aerodynamic Theory and Sailing

Combining the world of aerodynamics and sailing is a natural move thanks to the combination of wind and sail.

We all know that sailboats get their forward motion from wind energy, so it’s no wonder a little bit of understanding of aerodynamics is in order. Aerodynamics is a field of study focused on the motion of air when it interacts with a solid object.

The most common image that comes to mind is wind on an airplane or a car in a wind tunnel. As a matter of fact, the sail on a sailboat acts a bit like a wing under specific points of sail as does the keel underneath a sailboat.

People have been using the fundamentals of aerodynamics to sail around the globe for thousands of years.

The ancient Greeks are known to have had at least an intuitive understanding of it an extremely long time ago. However, it wasn’t truly laid out as science until Sir Isaac Newton came along in 1726 with his theory of air resistance.

Fundamental Forces

One of the most important facets to understand when learning about how a sail works under the magnifying glass of aerodynamics is understanding the forces at play.

There are four fundamental forces involved in the combination of aerodynamics and a sailboat and those include the lift, drag, thrust, and weight.

From the image above, you can see these forces at play on an airfoil, which is just like a wing on an airplane or similar to the many types of sails on a sailboat. They all have an important role to play in how a sail works when out on the water with a bit of wind about, but the two main aerodynamic forces are lift and drag.

Before we jump into how lift and drag work, let’s take a quick look at thrust and weight since understanding these will give us a better view of the aerodynamics of a sailboat.

As you can imagine, weight is a pretty straight forward force since it’s simply how heavy an object is.

The weight of a sailboat makes a huge difference in how it’s able to accelerate when a more powerful wind kicks in as well as when changing directions while tacking or jibing.

It’s also the opposing force to lift, which is where the keel comes in mighty handy. More on that later.

The thrust force is a reactionary force as it’s the main result of the combination of all the other forces. This is the force that helps propel a sailboat forward while in the water, which is essentially the acceleration of a sailboat cutting through the water.

Combine this forward acceleration with the weight of sailboat and you get Newton’s famous second law of motion F=ma.

Drag and Lift

Now for the more interesting aerodynamic forces at play when looking at how a sail works. As I mentioned before, lift and drag are the two main aerodynamic forces involved in this scientific dance between wind and sail.

Just like the image shows, they are perpendicular forces that play crucial roles in getting a sailboat moving along.

If you were to combine the lift and drag force together, you would end up with a force that’s directly trying to tip your sailboat.

What the sail is essentially doing is breaking up the force of the wind into two components that serve different purposes. This decomposition of forces is what makes a sailboat a sailboat.

The drag force is the force parallel to the sail, which is essentially the force that’s altering the direction of the wind and pushing the sailboat sideways.

The reason drag is occurring in the first place is based on the positioning of the sail to the wind. Since we want our sail to catch the wind, it’s only natural this force will be produced.

The lift force is the force perpendicular to the sail and provides the energy that’s pointed fore the sailboat. Since the lift force is pointing forward, we want to ensure our sailboat is able to use as much of that force to produce forward propulsion.

This is exactly the energy our sailboat needs to get moving, so figuring out how to eliminate any other force that impedes it is essential.

Combining the lift and drag forces produces a very strong force that’s exactly perpendicular to the hull of a sailboat.

As you might have already experienced while out on a sailing adventure, the sailboat heels (tips) when the wind starts moving, which is exactly this strong perpendicular force produced by the lift and drag.

Now, you may be wondering “Why doesn’t the sailboat get pushed in this new direction due to this new force?” Well, if we only had the hull and sail to work with while out on the water, we’d definitely be out of luck.

There’s no question we’d just be pushed to the side and never move forward. However, sailboats have a special trick up their sleeves that help transform that energy to a force pointing forward.

Hydrodynamics: The Role of the Keel

An essential part of any monohull sailboat is a keel, which is the long, heavy object that protrudes from the hull and down to the seabed. Keels can come in many types , but they all serve the same purpose regardless of their shape and size.

Hydrodynamics, or fluid dynamics, is similar to aerodynamics in the sense that it describes the flow of fluids and is often used as a way to model how liquids in motion interact with solid objects.

As a matter of fact, one of the most famous math problems that have yet to be solved is exactly addressing this interaction, which is called the Navier-Stokes equations. If you can solve this math problem, the Clay Mathematics Institute will award you with $1 million!

There are a couple of reasons why a sailboat has a keel . A keel converts sideways force on the sailboat by the wind into forward motion and it provides ballast (i.e., keeps the sailboat from tipping).

By canceling out the perpendicular force on the sailboat originally caused by the wind hitting the sail, the only significant leftover force produces forward motion.

We talked about how the sideways force makes the sailboat tip to the side. Well, the keep is made out to be a wing-like object that can not only effectively cut through the water below, but also provide enough surface area to resist being moved.

For example, if you stick your hand in water and keep it stiff while moving it back and forth in the direction of your palm, your hand is producing a lot of resistance to the water.

This resisting force by the keel contributes to eliminating that perpendicular force that’s trying to tip the sailboat as hard as it can.

The wind hitting the sail and thus producing that sideways force is being pushed back by this big, heavy object in the water. Since that big, heavy object isn’t easy to push around, a lot of that energy gets canceled out.

When the energy perpendicular to the sailboat is effectively canceled out, the only remaining force is the remnants of the lift force. And since the lift force was pointing parallel to the sailboat as well as the hull, there’s only one way to go: forward!

Once the forward motion starts to occur, the keel starts to act like a wing and helps to stabilize the sailboat as the speed increases.

This is when the keel is able to resist the perpendicular force even more, resulting in the sailboat evening out.

This is exactly why once you pick up a bit of speed after experiencing a gust, your sailboat will tend to flatten instead of stay tipped over so heavily.

Heeling Over

When you’re on a sailboat and you experience the feeling of the sailboat tipping to either the port or starboard side, that’s called heeling .

As your sailboat catches the wind in its sail and works with the keel to produce forward motion, that heeling over will be reduced due to the wing-like nature of the keel.

The combination of the perpendicular force of the wind on the sail and the opposing force by the keel results in these forces canceling out.

However, the keel isn’t able to overpower the force by the wind absolutely which results in the sailboat traveling forward with a little tilt, or heel, to it.

Ideally, you want your sailboat to heel as little as possible because this allows your sailboat to cut through the water easier and to transfer more energy forward.

This is why you see sailboat racing crews leaning on the side of their sailboat that’s heeled over the most. They’re trying to help the keel by adding even more force against the perpendicular wind force.

By leveling out the sailboat, you’ll be able to move through the water far more efficiently. This means that any work in correcting the heeling of your sailboat beyond the work of the keel needs to be done by you and your crew.

Apart from the racing crews that lean intensely on one side of the sailboat, there are other ways to do this as well.

One way to prevent your sailboat from heeling over is to simply move your crew from one side of the sailboat to the other. Just like racing sailors, you’re helping out the keel resist the perpendicular force without having to do any intense harness gymnastics.

A great way to properly keep your sailboat from heeling over is to adjust the sails on your sailboat. Sure, it’s fun to sail around with a little heel because it adds a bit of action to the day, but if you need to contain that action a bit all you need to do is ease out the sails.

By easing out the sails, you’re reducing the surface area of the sail acting on the wind and thus reducing the perpendicular wind force. Be sure to ease it out carefully though so as to avoid luffing.

Another great way to reduce heeling on your sailboat is to reef your sails. By reefing your sails, you’re again reducing the surface area of the sails acting on the wind.

However, in this case the reduction of surface area doesn’t require altering your current point of sail and instead simply remove surface area altogether.

When the winds are high and mighty, and they don’t appear to be letting up, reefing your sails is always a smart move.

How an Airplane Wing Works

We talked a lot about how a sail is a wing-like object, but I always find it important to be able to understand one concept in a number of different ways.

Probably the most common example’s of how aerodynamics works is with wings on an airplane. If you can understand how a sail works as well as a wing on an airplane, you’ll be in a small minority of people who truly understand the basic aerodynamic theory.

As I mentioned before, sails on a sailboat are similar to wings on an airplane. When wind streams across a wing, some air travels above the wing and some below.

The air that travels above the wing travels a longer distance, which means it has to travel at a higher velocity than the air below resulting in a lower pressure environment.

On the other hand, the air that passes below the wing doesn’t have to travel as far as the air on top of the wing, so the air can travel at a lower velocity than the air above resulting in a higher pressure environment.

Now, it’s a fact that high-pressure systems always move toward low-pressure systems since this is a transfer of energy from a higher potential to a lower potential.

Think of what happens when you open the bathroom door after taking a hot shower. All that hot air escapes into a cooler environment as fast as possible.

Due to the shape of a wing on an airplane, a pressure differential is created and results in the high pressure wanting to move to the lower pressure.

This resulting pressure dynamic forces the wing to move upward causing whatever else is attached to it to rise up as well. This is how airplanes are able to produce lift and raise themselves off the ground.

Now if you look at this in the eyes of a sailboat, the sail is acting in a similar way. Wind is streaming across the sail head on resulting in some air going on the port side and the starboard side of the sail.

Whichever side of the sail is puffed out will require the air to travel a bit farther than the interior part of the sail.

This is actually where there’s a slight difference between a wing and a sail since both sides of the sail are equal in length.

However, all of the air on the interior doesn’t have to travel the same distance as all of the air on the exterior, which results in the pressure differential we see with wings.

Final Thoughts

We got pretty technical here today, but I hope it was helpful in deepening your understanding of how a sail works as well as how a keel works when it comes to basic aerodynamic and hydrodynamic theory.

Having this knowledge is helpful when adjusting your sails and being conscious of the power of the wind on your sailboat.

With a better fundamental background in how a sailboat operates and how their interconnected parts work together in terms of basic aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, you’re definitely better fit for cruising out on the water.

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The design of a wingsail

Application of a holistic design optimization methodology

A wingsail is an aerodynamic structure analogous to an airplane wing, fitted to a marine vessel in place of a traditional sail. Over the past decade wingsails have become more and more popular among sailboat designers, owners, and skippers, due to their ease of use and control, but most importantly, for their advanced efficiency, compared to the traditional sail.

In this project Optiphore used design optimization and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technics to investigate the aerodynamic performance of two types of wingsail that can substitute the existing traditional sail of a sailboat. The first, a rigid single-component wingsail geometry, with variable chord length and varying airfoil geometry. The second, a flexible single-component wingsail geometry with variable chord length, varying airfoil geometry, and twist.

While new sailboats can be designed from scratch with a wingsail configuration, in this case the goal was to find an appropriate geometry that could also be retrofitted on an existing sailboat, producing equivalent sail characteristics by roughly maintaining the existing centers of gravity and effort respectively. Therefore, while the developed design methodology is generic and can be applied to a plethora of sailboat models, the end-result is a custom wingsail geometry, designed specifically for the needs of a certain sailboat model.

The applied strategy for obtaining a wingsail geometry is divided into two parts. In the first part a proprietary evolutionary algorithm is used to generate airfoil sections at various wingfoil spans, taking into account the wind’s speed and the airfoil’s angle of attack at each wingsail span. Every airfoil is described with an appropriate parametric, mathematical representation and subsequently, a panel-method software is employed to evaluate the airfoils’ lift-to-drag ratio. This is a versatile approach that can produce optimal product design solutions by exploring among a huge number of feasible designs, inside a given design space. It can be coupled with any type of third-party software to evaluate the validity of all the different design variable combinations it explores, promoting optimal solutions as result.

In the case of both the rigid and the flexible wingsail types, each airfoil section is submitted to a different wind velocity, based on its wingsail span location, to conform for the wind's velocity profile. In the case of the rigid wingsail, all airfoils have the same angle of attack, as a rigid wingsail cannot support a twist. In the case of a flexible wingsail a linear twist is applied to reduce its induced drag, with the angle of attack at the tip equal to zero.

In the second part of the utilized strategy, the 2D airfoil sections are used to produce the wingsail’s 3D geometry. At a first glance, any unexpected features of the wingsail shape can be identified, so the 2D analysis of specific sections can be performed again. A CFD analysis of the resulting shape can provide insight about any three-dimensional phenomena that occur on the wingsail, which cannot be identified with a 2D analysis. Moreover, its overall performance can be assessed at this point, by calculating the lift-to-drag ratio of the 3D shape and validating that the resulting shape is appropriate for the sailboat's needs.

Optiphore offers a comprehensive design optimization methodology. Starting with a blank canvas and a set of design requirements, a number of ideas get produced with the help of our proprietary design exploration tools. Those ideas can be evaluated often at a reduced computational cost. Eventually, the performance of the most promising ones is thoroughly evaluated to converge to the final design. Most product development design cycles can greatly benefit from such an approach.

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The Ultimate Guide to Sail Boat Designs: Exploring Sail Shape, Masts and Keel Types in 2023

• June 4, 2023

When it comes to sail boat designs, there is a wide array of options available, each with its own unique characteristics and advantages. From the shape of the sails to the number of masts and the type of keel, every aspect plays a crucial role in determining a sailboat’s performance, stability, and manoeuvrability. In this comprehensive guide, we will delve into the fascinating world of sail boat designs, exploring the various elements and their significance.

Table of Contents

The sail shape is a fundamental aspect of sail boat design, directly impacting its speed, windward performance, and maneuverability. There are several types of sail shapes, including:

1. Bermuda Rig:

The Bermuda rig is a widely used sail shape known for its versatility and performance. It features a triangular mainsail and a jib, offering excellent maneuverability and the ability to sail close to the wind. The Bermuda rig’s design allows for efficient use of wind energy, enabling sailboats to achieve higher speeds. The tall, triangular mainsail provides a larger surface area for capturing the wind, while the jib helps to balance the sail plan and optimize performance. This rig is commonly found in modern recreational sailboats and racing yachts. Its sleek and streamlined appearance adds to its aesthetic appeal, making it a popular choice among sailors of all levels of experience.

2. Gaff Rig:

The Gaff rig is a classic sail shape that exudes elegance and nostalgia. It features a four-sided mainsail with a gaff and a topsail, distinguishing it from other sail designs. The gaff, a horizontal spar, extends diagonally from the mast, providing additional area for the mainsail. This configuration allows for a taller and more powerful sail, making the Gaff rig particularly suited for downwind sailing. The Gaff rig offers a traditional aesthetic and is often found in vintage and classic sailboats, evoking a sense of nostalgia for a bygone era of maritime exploration. The distinctive shape of the Gaff rig, with its graceful curves and intricate rigging, adds a touch of timeless charm to any sailboat that dons this rig.

3. Lateen Rig:

The Lateen rig is a unique and versatile sail design that has been used for centuries in various parts of the world. It features a triangular sail that is rigged on a long yard, extending diagonally from the mast. This configuration allows for easy adjustment of the sail’s angle to catch the wind efficiently, making the Lateen rig suitable for a wide range of wind conditions. The Lateen rig is known for its ability to provide both power and maneuverability, making it ideal for small to medium-sized sailboats and traditional vessels like dhow boats. Its versatility allows sailors to navigate narrow waterways and make tight turns with ease. The distinctive silhouette of a sailboat with a Lateen rig, with its sleek triangular sail and graceful curves, evokes a sense of adventure and a connection to seafaring traditions from around the world.

Number of Masts

The number of masts in a sail boat design affects its stability, sail area, and overall performance. Let’s explore a few common configurations:

1. Sloop Rig:

The sloop rig is one of the most popular and versatile sail boat designs, favoured by sailors around the world. It consists of a single mast and two sails—a mainsail and a jib. The sloop rig offers simplicity, ease of handling, and excellent performance across various wind conditions. The mainsail, situated behind the mast, provides the primary driving force, while the jib helps to balance the sail plan and improve manoeuvrability. This configuration allows for efficient upwind sailing, as the sails can be trimmed independently to optimize performance. The sloop rig is commonly found in modern recreational sailboats due to its versatility, enabling sailors to enjoy cruising, racing, or day sailing with ease. Its streamlined design and sleek appearance on the water make it both aesthetically pleasing and efficient, capturing the essence of the sailing experience.

2. Cutter Rig:

The cutter rig is a versatile and robust sail boat design that offers excellent performance, especially in challenging weather conditions. It features a single mast and multiple headsails, typically including a larger headsail forward of the mast, known as the cutter rig’s distinguishing feature. This configuration provides a wide range of sail combinations, enabling sailors to adjust the sail plan to suit varying wind strengths and directions. The larger headsail enhances the boat’s downwind performance, while the smaller headsails offer increased flexibility and improved balance. The cutter rig excels in heavy weather, as it allows for easy reefing and depowering by simply reducing or eliminating the headsails. This design is commonly found in offshore cruising sailboats and has a strong reputation for its reliability and seaworthiness. The cutter rig combines versatility, stability, and the ability to handle adverse conditions, making it a preferred choice for sailors seeking both performance and safety on their voyages.

3. Ketch Rig:

The Ketch rig is a sail boat design characterized by the presence of two masts, with the main mast being taller than the mizzen mast. This configuration offers a divided sail plan, providing sailors with increased flexibility, balance, and versatility. The main advantage of the Ketch rig is the ability to distribute the sail area across multiple sails, allowing for easier handling and reduced stress on each individual sail. The mizzen mast, positioned aft of the main mast, helps to improve the sailboat’s balance, especially in strong winds or when sailing downwind. The Ketch rig is often favoured by cruisers and long-distance sailors as it provides a range of sail combinations suitable for various wind conditions. With its distinctive double-mast appearance, the Ketch rig exudes a classic charm and is well-regarded for its stability, comfort, and suitability for extended journeys on the open seas.

The keel is the part of the sail boat that provides stability and prevents drifting sideways due to the force of the wind. Here are some common keel types:

1. Fin Keel:

The fin keel is a popular keel type in sail boat design known for its excellent upwind performance and stability. It is a long, narrow keel that extends vertically from the sailboat’s hull, providing a substantial amount of ballast to counterbalance the force of the wind. The fin keel’s streamlined shape minimizes drag and enables the sailboat to cut through the water with efficiency. This design enhances the sailboat’s ability to sail close to the wind, making it ideal for racing and performance-oriented sailboats. The fin keel also reduces leeway, which refers to the sideways movement of the boat caused by the wind. This improves the sailboat’s ability to maintain a straight course and enhances overall manoeuvrability. Sailboats with fin keels are commonly found in coastal and offshore racing as well as cruising vessels, where stability and responsiveness are valued. The fin keel’s combination of performance, stability, and reduced leeway makes it a preferred choice for sailors seeking speed and agility on the water.

2. Full Keel:

The full keel is a design known for its exceptional stability and seaworthiness. It extends along the entire length of the sailboat, providing a continuous surface that adds substantial weight and ballast. This configuration offers significant advantages in terms of tracking and resistance to drifting sideways. The full keel’s deep draft helps to prevent leeway and allows the sailboat to maintain a steady course even in adverse conditions. Its robust construction enhances the sailboat’s ability to handle heavy seas and provides a comfortable ride for sailors on extended journeys. While full keel sailboats may sacrifice some manoeuvrability, their stability and predictable handling make them a popular choice for offshore cruising and long-distance voyages. The full keel design has stood the test of time and is often associated with classic and traditional sailboat aesthetics, appealing to sailors seeking reliability, comfort, and the ability to tackle challenging ocean passages with confidence.

3. Wing Keel:

The wing keel is a unique keel design that offers a combination of reduced draft and improved stability. It features a bulbous extension or wings on the bottom of the keel, which effectively increases the keel’s surface area. This design allows sailboats to navigate in shallower waters without sacrificing stability and performance. The wings create additional lift and prevent excessive leeway, enhancing the sailboat’s upwind capabilities. The reduced draft of the wing keel enables sailors to explore coastal areas and anchor in shallower anchorages that would be inaccessible to sailboats with deeper keels. The wing keel is particularly well-suited for sailboats in areas with variable water depths or tidal ranges. This keel design offers the advantages of increased manoeuvrability and improved performance while maintaining stability, making it a popular choice for sailors seeking versatility in a range of sailing environments.

In the vast world of sail boat designs, sail shape, number of masts, and keel types play pivotal roles in determining a boat’s performance and handling characteristics. Whether you’re a recreational sailor, a racer, or a cruiser, understanding these design elements can help you make informed choices when selecting a sailboat.

Remember to consider your specific needs, preferences, and intended use of the boat when choosing a sail boat design. Each design has its strengths and weaknesses, and finding the perfect combination will greatly enhance your sailing experience.

By gaining a deeper understanding of sail boat designs, you can embark on your next sailing adventure with confidence and make the most of the wind’s power.

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Sportboat Wing-on-Wing Guide

• By Steve Hunt
• July 11, 2023

if conditions warrant, some boats, like J/70s, FJs, Collegiate 420s and Snipes, successfully wing for the entire run. And for other boats that carry asymmetric spinnakers, such as J/105s and Melges 20s, brief moments of winging can present gains, such as when jibing, (a late-main jibe), coming into a leeward mark gaining an overlap, or shooting the downwind finish line. It’s a powerful technique to have in your toolbox these days, so let’s dive deeper into the art of the wing, how to do it and when to do it.

There’s usually no ­question when in the middle wind ranges—from 8 to 14 knots—where the wing technique works well. By doing so, you’ll sail less distance without sacrificing much speed, getting you to the leeward mark sooner than someone who reaches back and forth. But in light air, it’s often too slow to wing, and the jib or kite doesn’t have enough pressure to fly well. Also, when the wind is light, the main falls into the middle of the boat, causing an unintentional jibe. You need enough pressure to hold the sails firmly in the winging ­configuration to make it work.

In the crossover zone, when you are unsure if winging will work, it can pay to give it a shot. If it doesn’t feel powered up and fast, abort the wing by continuing your turn, jibing the boom, and flattening onto the new jibe. The cool thing with this move is that you can get a boost of speed during the flatten, especially in a dinghy. Experiment with winging in the crossover wind range, then aborting, ­making it a late-main jibe.

At the other end of the spectrum, when it gets super windy, boats like the FJ, 420 and Snipe are still winging and might even plane on the wing. For heavier boats that wing, like the J/70, there comes a time to abandon the wing and start planing on the reach. It’s all about your best VMG to the mark, knowing your boat, and understanding when to transition as the breeze changes. In puffy conditions in the planing crossover range, 14 to 18 knots, the true masters of downwind morph from one mode to the next, putting hundreds of meters on the competition.

When winging, you must have a big lane behind you because winging is difficult in bad air. Also, boats behind you that are also winging throw a big wind shadow. Always work to find a nice lane before winging. Some people call this a seam in the fleet, a corridor of nice pressure with no boats behind you.

Winging Angles

For those unfamiliar with ­winging and the angle changes created by doing so, one way to think about it is to compare it to a symmetric spinnaker boat, such as an Etchells or Lightning, that can square the pole back in a medium breeze. In light air, those boats reach back and forth with the pole near the headstay. Once the breeze increases enough, they square the pole back and sail deep. This is a similar angle to winging. A boat with the spinnaker squared back is basically the same as being wing-on-wing. When in this mode, you’ll jibe through about 20 to 30 degrees.

I always look forward, toward the gate marks or finish line, to determine if I am sailing the least distance. Visualize your new angle if you were to jibe and question whether it would be closer to the mark. If so, and the lanes are free, do it. Usually when winging, I want to see the leeward mark right over the bow or just between the jib or spinnaker and the mainsail. While doing this, let’s say you get a lift. The jib or spinnaker suddenly feels less powerful, so you head up to get to the optimal angle again with the sheets pulling. Now the gate or finish line has dropped out of your field of vision, behind the main. That tells you it’s time to jibe. Conversely, if you get a big header while aiming at the gate and now appear overstood, abandon the wing and go back to a reach. The key is to point the boat at the gate or finish line in whatever configuration you need to be in for the given wind conditions, assuming you have a good lane.

Tactical Winging

A key to sailing well downwind in any boat is to satisfy two basic rules: Sail the jibe that takes you most directly toward the ­leeward mark, and sail in the most breeze. If you can sail toward the mark while in nice pressure and in a big lane, you’ll hit a tactical home run. When you are in a boat that has various modes, like reaching and winging, always use the most appropriate mode to help you. Here are a few examples:

A. You round the weather mark in a left shift and want to go straight downwind on the header. It’s blowing 10 knots, so winging will provide the best VMG. After rounding the weather mark, you reach for a bit until a lane opens up. Now you have to decide which jibe to be on while winging. You could simply wing on the starboard jibe, or jibe over to port and then wing. Because you are headed and happy, the correct move is to simply bear away and wing, staying on starboard.

B. You round the weather mark in a lift, so the game plan is to jibe to port. But there’s a cone of bad air at the top of the course. You reach for 30 seconds to a minute, eager to jibe and go the other way. With a train of boats sailing straight out of the mark with you, winging away would put you in bad air. So, the best move is to jibe onto a port reach to quickly exit the train of boats and their dirty breeze. Once clear of the bad-air zone, let’s say 50 to 100 meters, go into winging mode to sail the header toward the leeward mark on the port jibe. You’ll be in a nice lane, sailing low and fast toward the leeward gate.

C. You’re leading a tight race or might be just ahead of a group of boats, and you round the weather mark. Don’t immediately wing. If you do, you’ll likely get covered. Here, the move is to round the weather mark, reach for a while, and be patient. Once the boats behind you wing, then you can establish a nice lane and wing. If you reach for a while and feel like you should be winging, but no one around you is, and you want to get away from nearby boats, jibe to port, as mentioned earlier, reach for a little bit to get away from the group, and then wing into a nice lane.

D. If you round the weather mark in a lift and have no boats to worry about behind you threatening to steal your wind, a technique unique to the J/70 is you can get into a wing by bearing away and slowly jibing the boom. It allows you to quickly sail the other way downwind, as if you had completed a full jibe and then winged the kite. On smaller boats that accelerate more during maneuvers, it’s faster to jibe, flatten, and then wing the jib.

Practicing and Speed

Winging well takes practice and communicating to your team about the next move. It’s key that everyone is on the same page. With all the tactical options in the J/70, the fleet has developed its own lingo about turning while winging, “left turn 1 degree here” or “right turn 1 degree,” because up and down can get confusing with sails on both sides of the boat. For winging or exiting the wing in a J/70, identify the sail you are jibing. For example, say, “jibing boom to a wing,” “jibing kite to a wing,” or “exiting wing with boom over and a left turn.” In small boats, it’s a little more straightforward, but communications need to be defined regardless. A few examples are: “Let’s wing here,” “let’s jibe then wing,” and “let’s do a wing-on-wing jibe.” And to exit the wing, “jibing the boom to a reach.”

Sailing fast while winging is critical, so let’s discuss what you should focus on. The short version is, once you have winged a jib or a spinnaker, sail slightly up toward the jib or spinnaker on a broad reach, or a “high wing,” as some call it. You’re trying to not sail dead downwind because it’s faster to be slightly up toward the forward sail in a high wing. There’s a sweet spot, which is where the sail would want to fall in toward the boat and assume a reaching position, if you were to head up a few more degrees toward the jib or spinnaker. If you see that happening, bear away a few degrees until it’s stable and happy. At that angle, the jib or spinnaker will be powered up.

If you’re holding the sheet, you can feel the sail pulling nicely. Bear away a few more degrees to a dead downwind angle and the sail will lose a little pressure. Bear away a little more and you will feel the slowest winging situation possible—by the lee where the sheet pulls the least because the main starts covering the jib or spinnaker. I see a lot of kids doing this in the FJs and 420s, and sometimes adults in the J/70s. You can end up there by turning down accidentally, having a wave push the bow down, or possibly by a windshift lifting you. To avoid sailing too low or two high, stick to the rule of sailing high on the foresail, but not so high that it wants to collapse in on itself. This powered-up mode is fast. To keep it here, you need to constantly test the ups, look at the telltales and masthead fly, and feel the power in the sheet.

If you are at the perfect wing angle and notice a lift (the masthead fly goes from the weather corner of your boat to the center of the stern), the sheet loses pressure, or you just feel like the boat has lost pressure, head up if you want to continue straight. Or immediately jibe to a reach, throwing the boom over, flattening with extra speed onto a header, then bear away and wing again. The jibe maneuver when lifted is super-fast and allows you to quickly sail the header downwind. If performed before others around you, it allows you to lead on the new, long, headed tack. All of this is tactical gold.

Now that you know how and when it’s best to go wing-on-wing, let’s explore seven top winging moves that can make your race.

Cut the corner. Typically, everyone sails out of the weather mark on starboard, reaching, unless conditions call for an immediate jibe set. If you can wing before the boat in front of you, you cut the corner on them and still maintain a starboard-­tack advantage. The boat in front ends up in a difficult situation in that they want to jibe to aim for the gates, but you have borne away inside them and cut them off, and you’re still on starboard. I love using that move in a J/70. I’ve been passed by it, and I’ve passed boats using it.

Be the first to wing. If you round the weather mark with a big enough lead or a gap behind you and instantly wing, you can gain huge on the boats that have not yet done so. Doing that while leading can instantly break the race open. While others are reaching and waiting for the opportunity to wing, you’re already sailing deep, headed straight for the leeward mark, and you’re gone. You can end up winning the race by hundreds of meters. And if you happen to have a gap behind you, winging before the group ahead allows you to cut the corner on them.

Paint the competition into a corner. In the same realm of cutting the corner, this move occurs in the corner, near the layline. Let’s say you’re going downwind, reaching on port jibe, and following someone who is also reaching. As you approach the left corner (looking downwind), knowing they will jibe soon, wing behind them. Now you’re sailing deeper and cutting the corner. When they jibe, you now have a perfectly matched racing setup to jump them and steal their breeze. As the boats converge, watch their masthead fly to see where their wind is coming from, and then jibe over by simply throwing your boom with a right turn and flattening onto their breeze. It’s a quick move and takes the wind out of their sails, literally and figuratively. From here, either you roll them, or they’re forced to jibe back into the corner, reducing their options and forcing more maneuvers. You can also “paint into a corner” against groups of boats.

If in the back of the fleet, wing immediately. Another time to go right into the wing mode is when you’re doing poorly. Maybe you were OCS and went back now to find yourself in last place, desperately hoping to catch up. Wing-on-wing can give you that opportunity. Once rounding in last, you can always lighten the mood by pointing out the good news of having a massive lane, and then instantly wing. I’ve seen a lot of people in that position catch up a ton downwind just by getting into the wing and keeping it the whole run, sailing less distance.

Sail perpendicular. When coming into the finish line or a leeward gate, sail perpendicular to reduce distance. By winging, you cut the corner on any boats ahead that are reaching. I think of it as sailing one side of a triangle while they sail two, by extending forward, jibing and reaching back. You can get to the finish line sooner with this move, even if the wind is a little light to wing.

There is also a specific scenario coming into a gate where you can use it to get room. If you are closely trailing an opponent and both of you approach the gate just outside the zone (aiming at the middle of the gates), you can wing behind them toward the mark to enter the zone first while they extend forward, then jibe to head back and round the gate. You are now inside and have room. Their jibe opens their stern, and you have entered the zone first and inside. This doesn’t happen often, but it feels nice when it does. It leaves you in a much stronger rounding position to start the next leg.

Ping the competition. You’re on the port jibe near the layline, approaching the right-hand gate (looking downwind), and there are other port-jibe boats overlapped to your right. They’re going to have room on you, probably leaving you on the outside of a big pinwheel around the gate mark. In this situation, you can jibe to starboard and reach toward those boats to take them out past the layline, then lead them back clear ahead and rounding ahead. Chances are, they might not anticipate you doing this, but even if they do, they have to stay clear. For safety within the rules, do this well before the three-boatlength zone, maybe as far out as five or six lengths so there’s no question you’re outside the zone. The boats you’re reaching toward can even be winging on the starboard jibe, but they have to either head up or jibe if on port because you’re the leeward boat. In a classic match-racing move, you’ve reached them off the racecourse, forcing them to overstand. They’re typically flailing at this point and probably starting to yell; bear away once you feel the geometry is correct and jibe toward the mark, breaking the overlap with them and entering the zone clear ahead. We call this the ping move. It can also be done at a ­downwind ­finish line.

Vary modes to manage your lane. If you’re wing-on-wing and someone is sailing at a different angle, about to encroach on your breeze, go into reach mode until you find another clean lane. Then bear off and wing again. If you maximize your time in big seams or lanes, you can do some damage downwind.

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Professional BoatBuilder Magazine

Inflated wing sail.

By Dan Spurr , Nov 20, 2017

The Inflatable Wing Sail has interesting attributes such as the absence of compression forces.

Just when you think there’s nothing new under the sun, some engineer finds a new way to build a mousetrap—not necessarily better but undeniably different. May we present: the Inflated Wing Sail, or IWS.

Swiss sailmaker Edouard Kessi has been pushing the envelope of wings for more than 30 years. Co-owner of the Voiles Gautier sail loft in St-Prex, he became intrigued with paragliders and inflated textiles and formed Ailes de K, which originated production in 1984–85. According to Internet sources, Kessi’s business partner Laurent de Kalermatten is considered the father of paragliding.

For sailboats, Kessi has long experimented with membranes as quantum improvements over traditional sailcloth. In fact, he developed and patented the technology that led to 3Di, which he sold to the North Sails Group. In the last issue of Professional BoatBuilder , No. 169, page 16, we reported on North Thin Ply Technology (NTPT), which Kessi helped found in 2001, and later it made the black carbon sails for 2007 America ’s Cup victor Alinghi . Currently, it manufactures an Automated Tape Laying machine to spread untwisted fiber tows into flat, unidirectional tapes that are super thin.

Back to the Inflated Wing Sail. It’s a double-skin fabric forming a symmetrical airfoil inflated by fans located inside the leading edge. The “mast” is a retractable, freestanding metal structure. There are no stays. Benefits listed on the company’s website include: NACA airfoil; symmetrical shape means no trimming required when tacking; aero­dynamic center “stays stable in every wind condition”; and remains balanced “to place itself in the best position to maximize the driving force.”

The IWS was developed by a Swiss sailmaker who is also active in paragliding. It is set on a retractable “mast.” Electric fans keep the sail inflated.

A study of the drawings, photos, and video on the company’s website quickly reveals the absence of control lines—with the lone exception of the mainsheet—and deck hardware. There are no compression forces, no leech tension, and no local stresses. One can jibe by letting the sail rotate 360° in front of the mast (what happens to the mainsheet isn’t clear; Kessi did not respond to requests for an explanation). The prototype was installed on an 18 ‘ (5.5m) sailboat and tested on Lake Geneva.

Next Technologies, CH-1162 St-Prex, Switzerland, tel. 0041 79 413 35 40, e-mail ed.kessi@ null nexttechnologies.ch , website Inflatedwingsails.com .

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17 Sailboat Types Explained: How To Recognize Them

Ever wondered what type of sailboat you're looking at? Identifying sailboats isn't hard, you just have to know what to look for. In this article, I'll help you.

Every time I'm around a large number of sailboats, I look around in awe (especially with the bigger ones). I recognize some, but with most of them, I'll have to ask the owner. When they answer, I try to hide my ignorance. The words don't make any sense!

So here's a complete list with pictures of the most common sailboat types today. For each of them, I'll explain exactly where the name comes from, and how you can recognize it easily.

So here's my list of popular sailboat types, explained:

Bermuda sloop, sailing hydrofoil, dutch barge, chinese junk, square-rigged tall ship, in conclusion, how to recognize any sailboat.

Before we get started, I wanted to quickly explain what you should look for when you try to identify a sailboat.

The type of sailboat is always determined by one of these four things:

• The type of hull
• The type of keel
• The number of masts
• And the type of sails and rig

The hull is the boat's body. There are basically three hull types: monohull, catamaran, and trimaran. Simply said: do I see one hull, two hulls (catamaran) or three hulls (trimaran)? Most sailboats are monohulls.

Next, there is the keel type. The keel is the underwater part of the hull. Mostly, you won't be able to see that, because it's underwater. So we'll leave that for now.

The sail plan

The last factor is the number of masts and the sail plan. The sail plan, simply put, is the number of sails, the type of sails, and how the sails are mounted to the masts (also called rigging ).

Sailboat are mostly named after the sail plan, but occasionally, a sail type is thrown in there as well.

So now we know what to pay attention to, let's go and check out some sailboats!

Dinghies are the smallest and most simple sailboats around.

They are your typical training sailboats. Small boats with an open hull, with just one mast and one sail. Perfect for learning the ways of the wind.

On average, they are between 6 and 20 ft long. Mostly sailed single-handed (solo). There's no special rigging, just the mainsail. The mainsail is commonly a Bermuda (triangular) mainsail. Dinghies have a simple rudder stick and no special equipment or rigging.

Dinghies are great for learning how to sail. The smaller the boat, the better you feel the impact of your trim and actions.

How to recognize a sailing dinghy:

• short (8ft)
• one Bermuda sail
• open hull design
• rudder stick

Common places to spot them: lakes, near docks

If you'd ask a kid to draw a sailboat, she'll most probably draw this one. The Bermuda Sloop is the most popular and most common sailboat type today. You'll definitely recognize this one.

How to recognize a Bermuda Sloop:

• triangular mainsail (called a Bermuda sail)
• a foresail (also called the jib)
• fore-and-aft rigged
• medium-sized (12 - 50 ft)

Fore-and-aft rigged just means "from front to back". This type of rigging helps to sail upwind.

Any sailboat with one mast and two sails could still be a sloop. Even if the sails are another shape or rigged in another way. For example, here's a gaff-rigged sloop (more on the gaff rig later):

If you want to learn all about sail rigs, check out my full Guide to Understanding Sail Rig Types here. It has good infographics and explains it in more detail

The Bermuda sloop has a lot of advantages over other sailboat types (which is why it's so popular):

• the Bermuda rig is very maneuverable and pretty fast in almost all conditions
• it's really versatile
• you can sail it by yourself without any problems
• it's a simple setup

Common places to spot a sloop: everywhere. Smaller sloops are more common for inland waters, rivers, and lakes. Medium-sized and large sloops are very popular cruising boats.

Cutters have one mast but three or more sails. Most cutters are Bermuda rigged, which means they look a lot like sloops.

How to recognize a cutter:

• looks like a sloop
• two or more headsails instead of one
• commonly one mast
• sometimes an extra mast with mainsail

Cutters have more sail area, which makes them faster, but also harder to sail single-handed. There's also more strain on the mast and rigging.

Common places to spot a cutter: everywhere. Cutters are very popular for cruising.

They mostly have a Bermuda rig, which means triangular sails. But there are also gaff cutters and naval cutters, and some have two masts.

Here's an example of a two-masted naval cutter with an extra gaff mainsail and top gaff:

The Hydrofoil is a pretty new sailboat design. It's a racing sailboat with thin wing foils under the hull. These lift up the hull, out of the water, reducing the displacement to nearly zero. The foils create downforce and keep it from lifting off entirely.

This makes the hydrofoil extremely fast and also impressive.

The hydrofoil refers to the keel type. There are both monohull and multihull hydrofoils.

How to recognize a hydrofoil:

• it flies above the waterline and has small fins

Common places to spot a hydrofoil: at racing events

Famous catamaran: La Vagabonde from Sailing La Vagabonde

A catamaran is a type of cruising and racing multihull sailboat with two hulls. The hulls are always the same size.

Most catamarans have a standard Bermuda rig. The catamaran refers to the hull, so it can have any number of masts, sails, sail types and rig type.

How to recognize a catamaran:

• any boat with two hulls is called a catamaran

Common places to spot catamarans: coastal waters, The Caribbean, shallow reefs

The advantages of a catamaran: Catamarans heel less than monohulls and are more buoyant. Because of the double hull, they don't need as deep a keel to be stable. They have a smaller displacement, making them faster. They also have a very shallow draft. That's why catamarans are so popular in the Caribbean, where there's lots of shallow water.

Catamarans are nearly impossible to capsize:

"Compared with a monohull, a cruising catamaran sailboat has a high initial resistance to heeling and capsize—a fifty-footer requires four times the force to initiate a capsize than an equivalent monohull." Source: Wikipedia

How to recognize a trimaran:

• any boat with three hulls is called a trimaran

Trimarans have three hulls, so it's a multi-hull design. It's mostly a regular monohull with two smaller hulls or floaters on the sides. Some trimarans can be trailered by winching in the auxiliary hulls, like this:

This makes them very suitable for long-term cruising, but also for regular docking. This is great for crowded areas and small berths, like in the Mediterranean. It sure is more cost-effective than the catamaran (but you also don't have the extra storage and living space!).

Common places to spot Trimarans: mostly popular for long-term cruising, you'll find the trimaran in coastal areas.

Gaffer refers to gaff-rigged, which is the way the sails are rigged. A gaff rig is a rectangular sail with a top pole, or 'spar', which attaches it to the mast. This pole is called the 'gaff'. To hoist the mainsail, you hoist this top spar with a separate halyard. Most gaffers carry additional gaff topsails as well.

Gaff rigs are a bit less versatile than sloops. Because of the gaff, they can have a larger sail area. So they will perform better with downwind points of sail. Upwind, however, they handle less well.

How to recognize a gaffer:

• sail is rectangular
• mainsail has a top pole (or spar)

Since a gaffer refers to the rig type, and not the mast configuration or keel type, all sailboats with this kind of rigging can be called 'gaffers'.

Common places to spot a gaffer: Gaffers are popular inland sailboats. It's a more traditional rig, being used recreationally.

Schooners used to be extremely popular before sloops took over. Schooners are easy to sail but slower than sloops. They handle better than sloops in all comfortable (cruising) points of sail, except for upwind.

How to recognize a schooner:

• mostly two masts
• smaller mast in front
• taller mast in the back
• fore-and-aft rigged sails
• gaff-rigged mainsails (spar on top of the sail)

Common places to spot a schooner: coastal marinas, bays

How to recognize a ketch:

• medium-sized (30 ft and up)
• smaller mast in back
• taller mast in front
• both masts have a mainsail

The ketch refers to the sail plan (mast configuration and type of rig). Ketches actually handle really well. The back mast (mizzenmast) powers the hull, giving the skipper more control. Because of the extra mainsail, the ketch has shorter masts. This means less stress on masts and rigging, and less heel.

Common places to spot a ketch: larger marinas, coastal regions

How to recognize a yawl:

• main mast in front
• much smaller mast in the back
• back mast doesn't carry a mainsail

The aft mast is called a mizzenmast. Most ketches are gaff-rigged, so they have a spar at the top of the sail. They sometimes carry gaff topsails. They are harder to sail than sloops.

The yawl refers to the sail plan (mast configuration and type of rig).

Common places to spot a yawl: they are not as popular as sloops, and most yawls are vintage sailboat models. You'll find most being used as daysailers on lakes and in bays.

Dutch Barges are very traditional cargo ships for inland waters. My hometown is literally littered with a very well-known type of barge, the Skutsje. This is a Frisian design with leeboards.

Skutsjes don't have a keel but use leeboards for stability instead, which are the 'swords' or boards on the side of the hull.

How to recognize a Dutch Barge:

• most barges have one or two masts
• large, wooden masts
• leeboards (wooden wings on the side of the hull)
• mostly gaff-rigged sails (pole on top of the sail, attached to mast)
• a ducktail transom

The clipper is one of the latest sailboat designs before steam-powered vessels took over. The cutter has a large cargo area for transporting cargo. But they also needed to be fast to compete with steam vessels. It's a large, yet surprisingly fast sailboat model, and is known for its good handling.

This made them good for trade, especially transporting valuable goods like tea or spices.

How to recognize a Clipper:

• mostly three masts
• square-rigged sails
• narrow but long, steel hull

Common places to spot a clipper: inland waters, used as houseboats, but coastal waters as well. There are a lot of clippers on the Frisian Lakes and Waddenzee in The Netherlands (where I live).

This particular junk is Satu, from the Chesapeake Bay Area.

The Chinese Junk is an ancient type of sailboat. Junks were used to sail to Indonesia and India from the start of the Middle Ages onward (500 AD). The word junk supposedly comes from the Chinese word 'jung', meaning 'floating house'.

How to recognize a Chinese junk:

• medium-sized (30 - 50 ft)
• large, flat sails with full-length battens
• stern (back of the hull) opens up in a high deck
• mostly two masts (sometimes one)
• with two mainsails, sails are traditionally maroon
• lug-rigged sails

The junk has a large sail area. The full-length battens make sure the sails stay flat. It's one of the flattest sails around, which makes it good for downwind courses. This also comes at a cost: the junk doesn't sail as well upwind.

The cat rig is a sail plan with most commonly just one mast and one sail, the mainsail.

Most sailing dinghies are cats, but there are also larger boats with this type of sail plan. The picture above is a great example.

How to recognize a cat rig:

• smaller boats
• mostly one mast
• one sail per mast
• no standing rigging

Cat-rigged refers to the rigging, not the mast configuration or sail type. So you can have cats with a Bermuda sail (called a Bermuda Cat) or gaff-rigged sail (called a Gaff Cat), and so on. There are also Cat Ketches and Cat Schooners, for example. These have two masts.

The important thing to know is: cats have one sail per mast and no standing rigging .

Most typical place to spot Cats: lakes and inland waters

Famous brig: HMS Beagle (Charles Darwin's ship)

A brig was a very popular type of small warship of the U.S. navy during the 19th century. They were used in the American Revolution and other wars with the United Kingdom. They carry 10-18 guns and are relatively fast and maneuverable. They required less crew than a square-rigged ship.

How to recognize a brig:

• square-rigged foremast
• mainmast square-rigged or square-rigged and gaff-rigged

How to recognize a tall ship:

• three or four masts
• square sails with a pole across the top
• multiple square sails on each mast
• a lot of lines and rigging

Square-rigged ships, or tall ships, are what we think of when we think of pirate ships. Now, most pirate ships weren't actually tall ships, but they come from around the same period. They used to be built from wood, but more modern tall ships are nearly always steel.

Tall ships have three or four masts and square sails which are square-rigged. That means they are attached to the masts with yards.

We have the tall ship races every four years, where dozens of tall ships meet and race just offshore.

Most common place to spot Tall Ships: Museums, special events, open ocean

This is a bonus type since it is not very common anymore. As far as I know, there's only one left.

The Trabaccolo is a small cargo ship used in the Adriatic Sea. It has lug sails. A lug rig is a rectangular sail, but on a long pole or yard that runs fore-and-aft. It was a popular Venetian sailboat used for trade.

The name comes from the Italian word trabacca , which means tent, referring to the sails.

How to recognize a Trabaccolo:

• wide and short hull
• sails look like a tent

Most common place to spot Trabaccolo's: the Marine Museum of Cesenatico has a fully restored Trabaccolo.

So, there you have it. Now you know what to look for, and how to recognize the most common sailboat types easily. Next time you encounter a magnificent sailboat, you'll know what it's called - or where to find out quickly.

I loved this article. I had no idea there were so many kinds of sailboats.

i have a large sailing boat about 28ft. that im having a difficult time identifying. it was my fathers & unfortunately hes passed away now. any helpful information would be appreciated.

Jorge Eusali Castro Archbold

I find a saleboat boat but i can find the módem…os registré out off bru’x, and the saleboat name is TADCOZ, can you tell me who to go about this matter in getting info.thank con voz your time…

Leave a comment

You may also like, 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.

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

How Much Sailboats Cost On Average (380+ Prices Compared)

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Wings of Grace

• By Jeremy McGeary
• Updated: April 29, 2008

Wings of Grace 368

It couldn’t have been a more Maine morning. Lobster boats and Friendship sloops hung in docile array from their moorings, their reflections aflutter in the not-quite-still, cool waters of Southwest Harbor. Gulls bickered overhead, and aboard Leslie and Michael Rindler’s 50-foot ketch, Wings of Grace, the scent of fresh-baked muffins wafted up from the galley. No store-bought muffins these, they were handcrafted that morning by Leslie and loaded to the crowns with first-of-the-season wild Maine blueberries. All that was missing was the fog. Not for long, for as we motored Wings of Grace toward Cranberry Island, the familiar gray cocoon enveloped us.

At the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis in October 2006, her black hull and varnished cabin trunk had set Wings of Grace distinctly apart. A brutal nor’easter pummeled the Chesapeake Bay for most of the show, flooding the docks for hours and limiting to a few minutes on the last day the time I could spend aboard. In that season of migrations and tight schedules, there was no time to sail her before she departed for her winter quarters near Charleston, South Carolina.

Fortune finally smiled, and last August I found myself aboard Wings of Grace in the company of her owners and builder, Todd French, of French & Webb, for the run from Southwest Harbor to Belfast, where French’s crew was to prep her for display in the show organized by Maine Boats, Homes, & Harbors magazine. Wings of Grace is a sublime exhibit for that event: Designed in Maine by Chuck Paine, she was built in one of Maine’s iconic harbors, and she serves as the winter home for the Rindlers, who summer in Maine.

A dose of fog will bring out the mettle of any mariner, and Michael Rindler was ready to take it on, the pages of his chart book tagged with sequentially numbered sticky notes and a chart plotter with radar overlay under the dodger. He threaded Wings of Grace between rocks, islands, and traffic, and he politely deferred all my writer’s questions to Leslie until we were clear of the complications of Casco Passage and the fog had dispersed ahead of the building sea breeze.

Wings of Grace trundled along at a brisk pace, powered by her 92-horsepower Yanmar diesel, while we admired glimpses of lobster boats, ferries, and a typical Maine assortment of pleasure craft, many of them, like Wings of Grace, built of wood and looking for wind to fill their sails.

Even when, as we approached Eggemoggin Reach, the fog yielded to the sun’s force, the wind was slow to take its place. Still, with the visibility good, the conversation turned from guessing what the red radar blobs overlaid on the chart plotter might portend-schooner or skiff?-to, well, other things Maine.

Todd French pointed to an elegant, low-slung mansion to our north, on a bluff overlooking a sheltered bay where a cluster of vessels clung to moorings. “That’s the WoodenBoat spread,” he said.

“As in the magazine?” I asked.

“Yes. The offices are in the house, and the school is just down the hill. That’s the boathouse, by the mooring field.”

I was reconsidering the wisdom of having moved south from Rhode Island instead of north, where editors can claim offices with such vistas, when Michael Rindler spoke up.

“I’m taking the marine-photography course there in September,” he said. As if to emphasize the point, he aimed his rather intimidating-looking Leica at me. “I’ll bring Wings of Grace here to live on, and I’ll row in to class every morning.”

In the space of a couple of hours aboard, I was beginning to get a feel for the Rindler lifestyle. Early in the trip, Todd had mentioned cars, and Michael admitted to having a small collection. A recent addition was a BMW 2002, the classic that put BMW into the consciousness of the American car buff.

At some point, I noticed the boat’s steering wheel. (Nobody else was paying it much attention because the autopilot was supplying the muscle.)

“It’s modeled after the banjo wheel on the 1952 Porsche,” volunteered Leslie. “We loved the wheel on that car, so we had the guys make the boat’s wheel to look like it.” The three stainless-steel spokes, each made up of eight polished rods, juxtaposed with the six-sided glass compass cover, are a handsome reminder that no government agency has yet required airbags and other clutter to interfere with the elegance, or whimsy, of a ship’s wheel. Michael and Leslie trace their sailing days back to high school, when Michael owned a 16-foot X-class dinghy. When they were dating, they sailed it on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

“It would sink every week, right up till the deck was just showing,” said Michael, “and on the weekend we’d bail it out and go sailing. It never really tightened up.”

Their next boat was a Melges M16 scow, but they weren’t into racing; they just liked being on the water under sail. From that they progressed to a Rhodes 19, then to a Bud McIntosh 24-foot wooden double-ender.

In the late 1990s, they dallied with fiberglass, first aboard a Hinckley Bermuda 40, then on a Hinckley Sou’wester 42 on which they took a sabbatical year, sailing to the Caribbean and back.

They made the cruise so that they could take their son, Timothy, then 11, to give him a taste of the cruising life and of the world while they home-schooled him through sixth grade. On the way south, they meandered along the coast from Maine, reaching Norfolk, Virginia, in October. From there they sailed to Bermuda, then ultimately as far south as Grenada.

After that, it was back to work, back to school, and back to terra firma until Timothy was off to college and they could replace the winter home in Hilton Head with one sporting sails.

While the Rindlers had a pretty good sense of what they needed in their new boat, pinning down the overall look proved more difficult. Then, at the Maine Boatbuilders Show in 2002, they saw the components French & Webb had built for the Alden schooner Lion’s Whelp, then under construction at Portland Yacht Services. Impressed, Michael chatted about his desires with Todd French. After the show, French sent him a copy of the coffee-table book of John Alden’s designs to study. A little later, Michael took the book to Chuck Paine, opened it at the page he’d marked with a yellow sticky note and said, “I’d like a boat that looks like that.”

The design he’d marked was a Malabar schooner. What he ended up with was a lovely boat that looks like the Malabar right down to the black-painted hull but ketch rigged. She even has the full-length keel but with Paine’s oversized aperture in the trailing edge, which permits the rudder to be balanced. Paine describes the rudder as being essentially a spade but with a structural gudgeon at the bottom; being balanced, it eliminates the heavy helm normally associated with full-keel designs. The arrangement also gives the propeller lots of clear water to work with even while protected by the keel, and it seems especially well suited to Maine’s lobster pot-strewn waters.

Paine allows as how his relationship with Michael Rindler is well up on the positive end of the scale. “He knew what he wanted,” Paine says, and that can certainly make a project run more smoothly for the designer-not that there weren’t a few wrinkles. “He wanted to keep the boat small, and it started out at 48 feet, but we were really having some problems, especially fitting in the aft cabin, where cabin-sole space was getting tight.” So Wings of Grace ended up at 50 feet, and because a little extra length never hurts a yacht’s profile, she likely came out even better for it.

Before Paine hit the “save” button on the arrangement plan, French & Webb built a mockup of the interior so the Rindlers could walk around and see how everything worked in three dimensions. The only major adjustment this triggered was the sacrifice of a quarter berth proposed for the aft stateroom to give the generator a space where it was accessible and could breathe.

Billy Black | | Once you’re below on Wings of Grace , the warmth of the upholstery, the glowing woodwork, and the traditional treatment of the deckhead embrace you and transport you to an age of grace. |

In her 50 feet, Wings of Grace has enough volume for a couple to live comfortably while still dealing with shoreside business. Nothing about the layout is cramped, and the galley is at the same time both shamelessly spacious and seamanlike. A generously proportioned guest cabin forward provides privacy for the Rindlers’ son when he visits, but since it’s usually just the two of them aboard, they chose to have one roomy head and shower compartment. Located amidships, it’s convenient to all quarters of the boat, and its partition and the galley counters opposite create a safe passageway between the saloon and the aft cabin and companionway. Leslie’s sense of color and balance is apparent in the deep-green upholstery, deep-burgundy stained woodwork, and white bulkheads and deckhead. The effect is warm, inviting, and very much in the tradition of the wooden yachts that inspired her.

French & Webb already had a good relationship with Chuck Paine, so it was natural that the firm would build her, especially given that the Rindlers had been drawn to them in the first place by the quality of their joiner work. And despite, or maybe because of, early experience with the foibles and feel of wooden boats, they were keen to have her built of wood, in the modern cold-molded wood-and-epoxy manner. Needless to say, the entire boat, from the elliptical cockpit to the aft-cabin cabinets, looks as though it were built by Stradivari.

And if Stradivari had built boats, they would’ve sailed the way Wings of Grace does.

In Annapolis, delivery skipper Andy Horner had her warped off the dock so the waves wouldn’t throw her against it, and when I boarded her after a day of hopping from one lightly built boat to another, it was like climbing onto a rock. A cabin sole that’s solid and doesn’t creak only enhances the sensation, which I remarked on to Chuck Paine after my visit in Maine.

“She’s heavy,” Paine said, “but that doesn’t make her slow.” Paine has long extolled the virtues of heavy displacement, especially when it’s matched with a generous sail plan. Despite her mainmast being lower than 65 feet so she has access to the Intracoastal Waterway, Wings of Grace carries enough sail to give her an SA/D of 18.19. The big mizzen is part of it, and it makes her easy to sail even if the wind is up, as I was to discover. And even though she draws only six feet, a long lump of ballast low down makes her mighty stiff.

At last my brief as a journalist trumped my reticence when it comes to asking personal questions. “What kind of one-man business supports this lifestyle?”

“You could call me a hospital doctor,” he said. “I don’t mean I’m a medical doctor. I make sick hospitals well again.”

“And I’m his tech support,” said Leslie. “I used to call myself his secretary, but I gave myself a promotion. Sounds much better, doesn’t it?”

Leslie also owns a gallery in Southwest Harbor where, in the summer season of June to September, she sells art-she sometimes offers paintings by Chuck Paine and his twin brother, Art-and furniture.

Michael’s specialty is rearranging the funding structure and operational efficiency of community hospitals so they can avoid being bought out by big chains. His reputation is such that hospitals now call him before they get into trouble or so that he can put them on a footing that lets them obtain financing for expansion.

Dealing with hospital boards of directors requires a delicate balance between diplomacy and directness, just the kind of skills needed to bring together a yacht designer, a builder, and a sailmaker to create with them a vessel such as Wings of Grace.

Todd French and his partner, Peter Webb, confirm that Michael Rindler is nothing if not persistent. Which is as it should be, because no great work of art or engineering arose from casual application on the part of its creators. And a yacht is a combination of both. That Wings of Grace is as magnificent as she is reflects credit to all who participated in her conception and construction.

After we finally wriggled our way out of Eggemoggin Reach and into the eastern part of Penobscot Bay, a little sea breeze began to flutter the water. We raised the mizzen, unfurled the staysail and genoa, and shut off the engine. The wind was light and fine off the port quarter, so we just moseyed along with the jib just drawing. Sharp-edged triangles on the water ahead gradually morphed into the New York Yacht Club fleet beating down the bay toward us. A Club Swan 42 sailed close by with about nine crew dangling their legs over the weather rail. On a beam reach as we cleared the northern end of Islesboro Island, we sailed into a brisk sou’wester. Even without the mainsail, Wings of Grace began to fly. Her sails now taut and drawing, they attracted a little more scrutiny from the deck. And what a sight they are. Set on carbon-fiber spars painted faux bois, they are the buttery color of cotton and traditionally cut with narrow panels.

“Michael was so obsessed with how the sails would look,” says Paine, “that he had us draw every panel in CAD. By the time we were done, he’d used up a good part of his budget for sails.”

“He was very particular,” Robbie Doyle, president of Doyle Sailmakers, told me later. “He wanted the color just right, and he wanted a traditional look. We ended up using the same woven Dacron fabric Contender made to our specs for the J-class Cambria, except that we used a single layer, not multiple layers. He also had us order the cloth width at 27 inches, instead of the standard 54 inches, to get that traditional narrow-panel look. The cloth is perfectly adequate for the boat, and it furls and flakes easily. We did a lot of special handwork, too, so the details look right.”

“Doyle made me buy a whole mill run of the cloth,” said Michael, “which was about six times more than we needed. By the time we were done, though, he’d found customers for most of it.”

All agree on something: Michael got what he wanted. Wings of Grace has sails that perfectly suit her appearance and her owners’ style of sailing, and all parties involved can feel proud for having contributed.

Sailing at eight knots under jigger and a couple of jibs is a rare treat in the 21st century, and it gave an indication of the power Wings of Grace must have under full sail. This wasn’t a day, though, for bashing around just for the heck of it; it was a day to bask in Maine’s summer beauty and celebrate the opening of the blueberry season. No doubt the Rindlers will have lots of occasions to cover the decks with salt spray, but I have a distinct feeling that they’re into their style of yachting for the pleasure and view with disdain the overhyped virtue of pain.

Jeremy McGeary is a Cruising World contributing editor.

LOD 50′ 0″ (15.24 m.) LWL 39′ 6″ (12.04 m.) Beam 14′ 0″ (4.27 m.) Draft 6′ 0″ (1.83 m.) Sail Area 1,430 sq. ft. (132.8 sq. m.) Ballast 15,000 lb. (6,803 kg.) Displacement 44,600 lb. (20,227 kg.) Ballast/D .34 D/L 323 SA/D 18.19 Water 185 gal. (701 l.) Fuel 250 gal. (948 l.) Mast Height 63′ 6″ (19.35 m.) Engine 92-hp.Yanmar 4JH3 Designer Chuck Paine

French & Webb Inc. www.frenchwebb.com (207) 338-6706

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Soft wing-sails are the next generation of sails 

Why soft wing-sails .

Why do we keep using sails like the old Dutch windmills rather than wings like the modern wind turbines?

Why do we try to make the sails look like wings rather than using the real thing?

Why do we use sails, knowing that wings are more efficient in terms of driving force and upwind pointing?

​ As a fighter pilot and an enthusiastic sailor for long time, I discovered that there are lots of similarities between flying and sailing, such as driving a machine on fluids, no brakes, windage effects on the bow / stern, the propeller walk, etc., However, the most and remarkable similarity is the use of lift force .

Airplanes use lift force, created on the wing due to the air flow around it, in order to hold the airplane up in the air. Sailing boats can use the same lift force, created on the sails as their driving force.

The answer to the questions "why" above was to make Omer Wing-Sail which is a simple structure wing-sail , easy to use, reliable, and good for all cruisers / cruiser racers in any weather condition.

Extensive sailing with the Omer soft wing-sail, strongly convinced me  that wing-sails are the next step in the evolution of sails.

Omer Wing-Sail

Why free-standing mast?

The idea of a mast without wires is foreign to most people. It is hard to fathom how a sailboat mast can stand, all by itself, without something to hold it up. However, those airplanes that long ago got rid of the wires holding the wings on in exchange for a spar, fly very safely. No one really thinks that the wing spar is not strong enough, and that an  airliner wing will fall apart.

Unstayed masts are designed to take the heeling and sailing loads the same way wing spars take the loads of the airplane.

The unstayed mast is held up by two parts - the heel fitting and the deck fitting. It puts no downward compression loads on the hull, which makes for a lighter hull structure as well as saving chain plates,  shrouds, turnbuckles and other fittings.

There are already many boats sailing out there with free standing masts such as the Superyacht "Black Pearl" that has three 64 meter free standing masts and the "Dwinger" with its 63 meters long free standing rotating mast.

In order to be efficient in almost all wind directions, the wing-sail should be able to freely rotate into the wind and maintain it's 0°-10° angle of attack. A free standing rotating mast is the perfect solution.

Omer wing-sail design

​Omer wing-sail is based on a rotating A frame mast, that supports both sides of the wing, having an accurate wing cross section as well as high moment of inertia. 

The wing is made of three different sails: two main sails and one U shape leading edge sail. All three sails are sliding independently up and down the mast. When all three sails are hoisted, we get a wing that one can reef and drop down like any other conventional sail. 

With the same sails area, we get a 10%-15% faster boat while pointing higher. 

Main design differences between America's cup wing and Omer Wing-sail 

Omer Wing-Sail cross section

AC 40 wing and jib cross section

37' Omer Wing Sail Cruiser

37' omer wing sail racing (optional), america's cup ac40, patents granted: .

US 6863008, 7603958, 8281727

EU 1373064, 2404820

NZ 529216, 586805, 593939

AU 2002236181, 2008344923

SA 2010/04809

OMER Wing Sail Ltd. 

23 Hohit St. Ramat Hasharon,

Israel, 47226

Tel: +972-3-5401675  

Mobile: +972-54-4277617

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Does Your Non-Republican Group Chat Secretly Find Trump Funny?

There are many such cases..

Welcome to  How Bad Is This, Really? , a recurring feature in which we take the temperature of how things are looking in the presidential election and what seems likely to happen in November.

This weekend, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivered remarks in Las Vegas about electric boat batteries and sharks. Out of respect for the democratic process, I ask that you watch and consider them in full before reading the rest of this article.

Context: Trump was recapping a conversation he had supposedly had with the proprietor of a company that makes boats. This person, in the former president’s account, is being forced to outfit the boats he manufactures with electric batteries and doesn’t like it. Neither does Trump:

Thank you. (Here is what the MIT thing is about .) Now ask yourself, and be honest: Did that make sense?

Many liberal writers and commentators said that it did not. “Cognitive Decline? Trump Short-Circuits During Bonkers Rant,” wrote the New Republic , which despite its history of contrarianism seems to have lately taken a turn toward trying to please the hypothetical median Democrat. “ I dare you to try to make sense of this,” said viral clip-account proprietor Aaron Rupar (which is something he says a lot ). An MSNBC blogger wrote , “It’s difficult to know not only what he’s talking about, but why in the world he said it in the first place.” The official Joe Biden–Kamala Harris campaign Twitter account posted a video of another MSNBC host who cited the shark monologue as an example of Trump’s being “untethered to reality.”

But is it really impossible to understand? Trump may be wrong about the science involved, but his point seems clear enough, which is that liberals are scolds who lack common sense. They want to equip boats with renewable batteries even though water and electricity don’t mix, and they care more about the feelings of sharks than the people sharks attack. (Soft on shark crime, soft on the causes of shark crime.) The premise of an electrocution/biting-death binary is far-fetched, but he obviously knows that. It’s an allegory, you might say, for Biden’s leadership turning the U.S. into a sinking ship circled by scavengers.

Also, his delivery is funny, as this seemingly left-leaning British reporter seems to understand :

Anecdotally, I had already suspected that semi-ironic Trump appreciation was common among left-leaning people who are young enough to be participating in multiple ongoing group chats , where his comedic work can be appreciated in semi-private. The shark incident presented the opportunity to do further research.

Posing a question on Twitter and in Slate’s workplace Slack chat provided some confirmation of the theory. Followers and colleagues attested (or admitted) to regularly enjoying and using Trump riffs in their social circles, from classics like “ many such cases ” and “ Wow—I didn’t know that, you’re telling me that for the first time ” (his over-the-top reaction to a reporter’s question about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, which he had almost certainly just been told about by advisers) to deep cuts, like his repeated invocation of the word routers after the 2020 election. One brought up the death of Harambe the gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo, which is how the phrase “ Trump weighs in on gorilla zoo shooting ” has been permanently etched into my memory. Another reminded me that Trump responded to his impending arrest by posting a message that said, “ WOW, they are going to ARREST ME .”

The “routers” clip was actually sent to me by Slate’s Nitish Pahwa, who, despite reporting professionally on the dangers of ethnonationalism , confided that he often repeats Trump’s pronunciation of the word to himself. (Nitish also said that he mimics Trump saying the word waffles but can’t locate the clip that made him start doing it in the first place. I am concerned about Nitish’s well-being.) Which raises two questions—what’s going on here, and is it a problem that establishment Democrats don’t seem to “get it”?

Part of it is probably the timeless tendency to console oneself with gallows humor. (Basically the entire purpose of a second Trump administration would be to repress the kind of people being discussed in this article.) Part of it is the forbidden appeal of unspoken truths. And part of it is the modern phenomenon of using technology to expose yourself to something stupid or absurd so many times that it becomes intrusively hilarious. (See: “ its time to drink precisely one beer and call 911 .”)

And although Trump comedy is not the biggest issue Joe Biden’s reelection campaign faces, it might be a problem that the current president’s team believes that it can undermine concerns about its candidate’s age by pointing to purportedly nonsensical Trump clips in which Trump is actually doing an easily parsed riff about how liberals are idiots. If a significant portion of people who despise Trump understand what is funny about him, amplifying his more appealing moments to voters who are on the fence might not be advisable.

Anyway, it’s our custom to conclude this column with a rating on the patented  Shovel Meter —a measure of exactly how sedated you might want to be at the moment, on a scale of one to five shovel blows to the head, if you’re concerned about Trump’s reelection and the potential end of democracy.

This week, it’s four shovels. When you’re discussing exactly how funny it is that a revenge-obsessed felon is currently favored to become the next president , things are not going well. But that’s OK—we’ll still keep drinking that garbage.

News | Taiwan investigates how a Chinese fishing boat…

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News | Taiwan investigates how a Chinese fishing boat managed to enter a strategic river mouth

Taiwanese authorities are investigating how an alleged former chinese naval officer sailed a small boat into a strategic river mouth that leads to the capital of the self-governing island republic.

TAIPEI, Taiwan TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese authorities are investigating how an alleged former Chinese naval officer sailed a small boat into a strategic river mouth that leads to the capital of the self-governing island republic.

The small boat was detected off the coast but apparently was not interdicted until it began interfering with ferry traffic across the Tamsui River, which flows from the mountains of inner Taiwan into the 160-kilometer (100-mile) -wide Taiwan Strait that separates Taiwan and China, which split during a civil war in 1949.

The boat’s pilot was identified as a 60-year-old former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy surnamed Ruan, the official Central News Agency said, raising questions as to whether the voyage was an attempt to test Taiwan’s detection and defense capabilities amid rising Chinese threats to conquer the island it claims as its own territory.

The Taiwan Strait is a key transit point for global commerce but is also known for its winds and tides, raising speculation over whether the small boat made it on its own from the Chinese coast or was launched from some kind of mother vessel.

Transport links have been restored between the sides over the past two decades, but China’s ruling Communist Party keeps tight restrictions on where serving and retired officials can travel.

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