Types of Sailboat Riggs, your online guide to Charleston, South Carolina

Types of Modern Sailboats

Cutter: (a) A single-masted, fore-and-aft-rigged sailing vessel with two or more headsails and a mast set somewhat farther aft than that of a sloop. (b) A fast sailing vessel with one mast, rigged in most essentials like a sloop. A cutter is narrower and deeper than a sloop of the same length, and depends for stability on a deep keel, often heavily weighted with lead. CNY 44 Cutter pictured at right.

Schooner: (a) A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel having at least two masts, with a foremast that is usually smaller than the other masts. (b) Originally, a small, sharp-built vessel, with two masts and fore-and-aft rig. Sometimes it carried square topsails on one or both masts and was called a topsail schooner. About 1840, longer vessels with three masts, fore-and-aft rigged, came into use, and since that time vessels with four masts and even with six masts, so rigged, are built. Schooners with more than two masts are designated three-masted schooners, four-masted schooners, etc. Pictured at right is a 48' Murray Peterson design built by Peter Matheson in the North of Scotland. Ironwork and running rigging by Classic Marine in the UK.

Sloop: A vessel having one mast and fore-and-aft rig, consisting of a boom-and-gaff mainsail, jibs, staysail, and gaff topsail. The typical sloop has a fixed bowsprit, topmast, and standing rigging, while those of a cutter are capable of being readily shifted. The sloop usually carries a centerboard, and depends for stability upon breadth of beam rather than depth of keel. The two types have rapidly converged since 1880. One radical distinction is that a sloop may carry a centerboard. Pictured left is the 35' sloop Columbia yacht, designed by Alan Payne.

(From US Sailing) Masthead Sloop: Both the Mainsail and Jib go to the top of the mast. Fractional Sloop: The Mainsail goes to the top of the mast, but the Jib stops short of the top of the mast.

Ketch: A two-masted fore-and-aft-rigged sailing vessel with a mizzenmast stepped aft of a taller mainmast but forward of the rudder. Pictured is the 23 meter ketch, Barbarossa, sailing in the islands of Malta.

Yawl: A two-masted fore-and-aft-rigged sailing vessel similar to the ketch but having a smaller jigger- or mizzenmast stepped abaft the rudder. Note how much smaller and further aft the mizzenmast is compared to the ketch. Pictured at right is the classic yawl Chimera, running the Jazz Cup race from Treasure Island to Beniciain San Francisco. Chimera is a Ted Hood (former America's Cup skipper and sail maker) designed 47-foot centerboard yawl made of Corten steel in Holland by Frans Maas over 41-years ago. (Thanks Grant!)