What You Need to Know About Sailboats
Given that humans started sailing thousands of years before Caesar crossed the Rubicon and even before the pharaohs built their pyramids, it should come as no surprise that sailboats still hold a special place in the hearts of many boat people. But how many people know what they need to know about sailboats?
With the caveat that there is way more to know about sailboats than we can cover here, let’s look at a basic overview of various types of sailboats. What differentiates them from one another? What makes each type special? Why are there so many types?
First, according to many experts, you should know how to sail before you buy a sailboat. The learning curve for sailing and the learning curve for boat ownership are both quite steep. Attempting to summit both of these mountains at once is asking for trouble.
That said, sailboats come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and configurations. Let’s look at a few of the major styles in the sailboat game.
Sailing Dinghy
The sailing dinghy is the smallest, most basic kind of sailboat. It is the type most people train on. Dinghies have a single mast and an open hull. They are often little more than a small bathtub of a boat typically between 6 feet and 20 feet long. They can be manned single-handed (i.e., operated by one person).
These boats are tremendous for learning the basics of sailing because they usually have a single sail, a rudder stick, and no complicated rigging or equipment. You can really get a feel for the impact of your trim and how your actions affect your course when sailing a dinghy.
Sloop
The sloop (or Bermuda sloop) is probably the boat most people think of when they picture a sailboat. Like the dinghy, it has a single mast, though sloops are typically a bit larger. They measure from 12 feet to 50 feet. They’re what’s called fore and aft rigged, meaning the sails run more or less along the line of the keel. On boats that are square-rigged, the sails cut across the beam.
So the sloop’s single mast is rigged with a triangular mainsail (also called a Bermuda sail) that extends toward the stern and a foresail (aka a jib) that extends toward the bow. This type of rigging gives the sailor a lot more maneuverability and the flexibility to sail upwind.
Ketch
Ketches are generally larger than sloops, typically starting at about 30 feet and getting larger. They are outfitted with two masts instead of one. The mast in front is taller, but both it and the slightly shorter mast behind it—the mizzenmast—have a mainsail. The taller foremast also has a jib, so a ketch has at least three sails. This configuration gives the skipper a lot of control, and ketches are known for handling smoothly. Another consideration you need to know is that both ketch masts are generally shorter than those on other kinds of similarly sized sailboats, reducing the stress on the masts and rigging.
Yawl
Yawls also have two masts, but the mizzenmast (the aft one) is much shorter than the mainmast. The mainmast is fore and aft rigged, so it has two sails on it, while the mizzenmast has a single sail that’s mainly there to aid with stability. Another difference between a yawl and a similarly rigged ketch is the mizzenmast’s placement. On a yawl, it is placed behind (or abaft) the rudder stock. On a ketch, it is placed forward of the rudder. That placement makes the sail area on the yawl’s mizzenmast much smaller than that of the ketch.
Schooner
Schooners are typically two-masted vessels whose masts are both fore and aft rigged. They were more popular in the past but began declining in use once the sloop model became widely copied. That was the case even though these boats are generally thought to handle better than sloops in most circumstances. The drawbacks are that schooners are slower than sloops and they don’t perform as well when sailing upwind.
They’re recognizable for a couple of reasons. The first is that both masts are rigged with two sails. The second is because the foremast is typically shorter than the aft mainmast. Also, many schooners are gaff-rigged, meaning they have a spar or a pole at the top of the mainsail.
Catamaran
Catamarans are defined, most evidently, by their twin hulls. Those hulls differentiate them from monohulls in a couple of other ways, too: less displacement and shallower draft. The paired hulls make catamarans much more difficult to capsize. Think of it like standing in a high wind with your feet wide apart versus standing on one foot and you get the idea.
Their shallow draft gives them more maneuverability, and they can be fast. Catamaran sailboats can really get cooking along the water due to the fact that they have less resistance than their monohulled cousins. Depending on the size of the boat, most sailing catamarans are Bermuda rigged fore and aft. The familiar triangular mainsail is rigged aft of the mast and a smaller jib is rigged to the fore.
Speaking of size, catamarans are built in a range of size options. Some of the smallest ones are basically just fabric or a “trampoline” connecting the two hulls. Many of the largest, extending 80 feet and beyond—the largest privately owned sailing cat is just over 150 feet—are built for cruising. You’re likely to find them in coastal waters, even in shallower areas monohulls can’t reach.
So now you know what you need to know about sailboats—the basics anyway—and the differences between the various types. The next time someone you know says, “There’s a sailboat,” you can say, “That, my friend, is a ketch (or a yawl or a schooner).”
Kurt Brighton
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