1.
Reliance (yacht)
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Reliance was the 1903 Americas Cup defender, the fourth defender from the famous designer Nat Herreshoff, and reportedly the largest gaff-rigged cutter ever built. Reliance was designed to take advantage of the Seawanhaka 90-foot rating rule and was regarded as a racing freak. The 1903 Americas Cup was the last to be raced according to the Seawanhaka rule, to save weight, she was completely unfinished below deck, with exposed frames. She was the first racing boat to be fitted with winches below decks, despite this she carried a crew of 64 for racing due to her large sail plan. From the tip of her bowsprit to the end of her 108-foot boom, Reliance measured 201 feet, and the tip of her mast was 199 feet above the water. Everything else was to a gargantuan scale, her spinnaker pole was 84 feet long. Reliance was built for one purpose, to defend the Americas Cup. Her racing career was extraordinarily brief – and undefeated, there was much speculation as to whether Reliances victory was due to the design of the yacht or the skill of Charlie Barr in sailing her. Lipton himself proposed to allow the two boats to swap crew after the race to decide the matter, but the offer was refused by the owners of Reliance and her very successful career was short-lived, and she was sold for scrap in 1913
2.
America's Cup
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The Americas Cup, affectionately known as the Auld Mug, is a trophy awarded to the winner of the Americas Cup match races between two sailing yachts. The timing of each match is determined by an agreement between the defender and the challenger, the Americas Cup is the oldest international sporting trophy. The ewer was originally awarded in 1851 by the Royal Yacht Squadron for a race around the Isle of Wight in England, any yacht club that meets the requirements specified in the deed of gift has the right to challenge the yacht club that holds the cup. If the challenging club wins the match, it gains stewardship of the cup, the history and prestige associated with the Americas Cup attracts not only the worlds top sailors and yacht designers but also the involvement of wealthy entrepreneurs and sponsors. It is a test not only of sailing skill and boat and sail design, from the first defense of the cup in 1870 through the twentieth defense in 1967, there was always only one challenger. Since 1983, Louis Vuitton has sponsored the Louis Vuitton Cup as a prize for the winner of the challenger selection series, early matches for the cup were raced between yachts 65–90 ft on the waterline owned by wealthy sportsmen. This culminated with the J-Class regattas of the 1930s, after a long legal battle, the 2010 Americas Cup was raced in 90 ft lwl multihull yachts in a best of three deed of gift match in Valencia, Spain. The victorious Golden Gate Yacht Club then elected to race the 34th Americas Cup in AC72 foiling, Golden Gate Yacht Club successfully defended the cup. The 35th Americas Cup match was announced to be sailed in 50 ft foiling catamarans, the history of the Americas Cup has included legal battles and disputes over rule changes including most recently over the rule changes for the 2017 Americas Cup. It was originally known as the R. Y. S, £100 Cup, standing for a cup of a hundred GB Pounds or sovereigns in value. The cup was subsequently mistakenly engraved as the 100 Guinea Cup by the America syndicate, today, the trophy is officially known as the Americas Cup after the 1851 winning yacht, and is affectionately called the Auld Mug by the sailing community. It is inscribed with names of the yachts that competed for it, the syndicate contracted with pilot boat designer George Steers for a 101 ft schooner, which was christened America and launched on 3 May 1851. On 22 August 1851, America raced against 15 yachts of the Royal Yacht Squadron in the Clubs annual 53-nautical-mile regatta around the Isle of Wight, America won, finishing 8 minutes ahead of the closest rival. Apocryphally, Queen Victoria, who was watching at the line, was reported to have asked who was second. No challenge to race for the Cup was issued until British railway tycoon James Lloyd Ashburys topsail schooner Cambria beat the Yankee schooner Sappho in the Solent in 1868. This success encouraged the Royal Thames Yacht Club in believing that the cup could be back home. Ashbury entered Cambria in the NYYC Queens Cup race in New York City on 8 August against a fleet of seventeen schooners, the Cambria only placed eighth, behind the aging America in fourth place and Franklin Osgoods Magic in the fleets lead. Trying again, Ashbury offered a match race challenge for October 1871
3.
Sailing
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Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the water, on ice or on land over a chosen course, which is often part of a larger plan of navigation. A course defined with respect to the wind direction is called a point of sail. Conventional sailing craft cannot derive power from sails on a point of sail that is too close into the wind, on a given point of sail, the sailor adjusts the alignment of each sail with respect to the apparent wind direction to mobilize the power of the wind. In the 21st century, most sailing represents a form of recreation or sport, recreational sailing or yachting can be divided into racing and cruising. Cruising can include extended offshore and ocean-crossing trips, coastal sailing within sight of land, until the end of the 19th century, sailing ships were the primary means for marine commerce. The earliest representation of a ship under sail appears on a painted disc found in Kuwait dating between 5000 and 5500 BCE, polynesian oceanfarers traveled vast distances of open ocean in outrigger canoes using navigation methods such as stick charts. Advances in sailing technology from the Middle Ages onward enabled Arab, Chinese, Indian and European explorers to make longer voyages into regions with extreme weather and climatic conditions. There were improvements in sails, masts and rigging, improvements in marine navigation including the tree and charts. Sailing has contributed to many great explorations in the world, the air interacting with the sails of a sailing vessel creates various forces, including reaction forces. If the sails are properly oriented with respect to the wind, however, boats propelled by sails cannot sail directly into the wind. They must tack back and forth in order to progress directly upwind, sails are airfoils that work by using an airflow set up by the wind and the motion of the boat. Sails work in two modes to use the wind to force, PUSH, when the boat is going in the same direction as the wind. The force on the sail is mostly aerodynamic drag, and sails acting in this way are aerodynamically stalled. This force manifests itself as pressure differences between the two sides of the sail - there is a region of low pressure on the front side of the sail and a region of high pressure on the back. Another way to say this is that sails generate lift using the air flows around them in the same way as an aircraft wing. The wind that a boat experiences is the combination of the true wind and this combination is the apparent wind, which is the relative velocity of the wind relative to the boat. When sailing upwind the apparent wind is greater than the true wind, iceboats can typically sail at 5 times the speed of the wind. Where there is a difference in motion, then there is energy to be extracted at the interface, the sailboat does this by placing the sail in the air and the hull in the water
4.
Schooner
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A schooner /ˈskuːnər/ is a type of sailing vessel with fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts, the foremast being shorter than the main and no taller than the mizzen if there is one. While the schooner was originally gaff-rigged, modern schooners typically carry a Bermuda rig, such vessels were first used by the Dutch in the 16th or 17th century. They were further developed in North America from the early 18th century, the most common type, with two masts, were popular in trades requiring speed and windward ability, such as slaving, privateering, blockade running, and offshore fishing. In the Chesapeake Bay area several distinctive schooner types evolved, including the Baltimore clipper, bugeye, schooners were also popular among pirates in the West Indies during the Golden Age of Piracy, for their speed and agility. They could also sail in shallow waters, and while being smaller than other ships of the time period. Schooners first evolved in the late 17th century from a variety of small two-masted gaff-rigged vessels used in the coast, most were working craft but some pleasure yachts with schooner rigs were built for wealthy merchants and Dutch nobility. Following the arrival of the Dutch monarch William of Orange on the British throne and this vessel, captured in a detailed Admiralty model, is the earliest fully documented schooner. Royal Transport was quickly noted for its speed and ease of handling, North American shipbuilders quickly developed a variety of schooner forms for trading, fishing and privateering. According to the language scholar Walter William Skeat, the term comes from scoon. The Dutch word schoone means nice, good looking, robinson replied, A schooner let her be. The launch is variously described as being in 1713 or 1745, naval architects such as Howard Chapelle have dismissed this invention story as a childish fable, but some language scholars feel that the legend may support a Gloucester origin of the word. Other sources state the etymology as unknown and uncertain, the first detailed definition of a schooner, describing the vessel as two-masted vessel with fore and aft gaff-rigged sails appeared in 1769 in William Falconers, Universal Dictionary of the Marine. Although a schooner may have up to four masts, the schooner has only two, with the foremast shorter than the mainmast. There may be a bowsprit to help balance the rig, the principal issue with a schooner sail plan is how to fill the space between the two masts most effectively. Traditional schooners were rigged, and the trapezoid shape of the foresail occupied the inter-mast space to good effect, with a useful sail area. A Bermuda rigged schooner typically has four sails, a mainsail, a main staysail abaft the foremast, plus a forestaysail. An advantage of the schooner is that it is easily handled and reefed by a small crew. The main staysail will not overlap the mainsail, and so little to prepare the wind for the mainsail
5.
Square rig
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These spars are called yards and their tips, beyond the last stay, are called the yardarms. A ship mainly so rigged is called a square-rigger, the square rig is aerodynamically the most efficient running rig, and stayed popular on ocean-going sailing ships until the end of the Age of Sail. The last commercial sailing ships, windjammers, were usually square-rigged four-masted barques, square-rigged masts may also have triangular staysails that are deployed fore-and-aft between masts. Square-rigged is also used for the uniform of a rating in the Royal Navy since 1857 and it is slang and refers to anyone wearing the famous blue square collar on the shoulders and bell-bottomed trousers. The name perhaps reflects the fact that it was men who managed the square-rigged sails. The peaked cap worn by Senior Ratings and Officers is known colloquially as fore-and-aft rig. A mast is considered square-rigged if its lowest sail or course is square-rigged, if the course is fore-and-aft, square topsails can still be carried in front of the mast. In their heyday, square-rigged vessels ranged in size from small boats to full rigged ships, but this rig fell from favour to fore-and-aft gaff rigs and bermuda rigs after the development of steam power and new materials. Ocean-going sailing ships stayed mostly square-rigged, Square rigs allowed the fitting of many small sails to create a large total sail area to drive large ships. 18th century warships would often achieve speeds of 12–13 knots. Some clipper ships that had square rigs and for speed was critical could be much faster. The late windjammers were as fast as the clippers, being much bigger, not only could a smaller sail be managed by a smaller crew but also these smaller sails constrained the impact of weapons on them. A hole from a cannonball affected only one area, whilst a hole in a large sail would eventually tear the whole larger area. This reduced running costs and also enlarged the space available in the ship for profitable cargoes, new materials also changed sail designs, particularly on hybrid vessels carrying some square-rigged sails. The low aspect ratio of square-rigged sails produces much drag for the lift produced, so they have poor performance to windward compared to modern yachts, the Bermuda rig is the undisputed champion of windward performance in soft sails, due to its very low drag and high lift-to-drag ratio. One advantage of square rigs is that they are efficient when running, where the high lift to drag is irrelevant. Square-rigged sails are also prone to broaching when running than Bermuda rigs. Ocean-going vessels take advantage of e. g. the trade winds, on a square-rigged mast the sails had names which indicated their vertical position on the mast
6.
Sloop
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A sloop is a sailing boat with a single mast and a fore-and-aft rig. A sloop has only one head-sail, if a vessel has two or more head-sails, the cutter is used, and its mast may be set further aft than on a sloop. The most common rig of modern sailboats is the Bermuda-rigged sloop, typically, a modern sloop carries a mainsail on a boom aft of the mast, with a single loose-footed head-sail forward of the mast. Sloops are either masthead-rigged or fractional-rigged, on a masthead-rigged sloop, the forestay attaches at the top of the mast. The mainsail may be smaller than the headsail, which is called a genoa jib. On a fractional-rigged sloop, the forestay attaches to the mast at a point below the top, typically 3/4 of the way to top, or perhaps 7/8 or some other fraction. The mast of a fractional-rigged sloop may be placed forward, compared to a masthead-rigged sloop. After the cat rig, which has only a mainsail, the rig is one of the simpler sailing rig configurations. A sloop typically has two sails, a mainsail and a headsail, while the cutter has a mainsail and two or more headsails, next in complexity are the ketch, the yawl and the schooner, each of which has two masts and a minimum of three sails. A sloop has a system of mast rigging — a forestay. By having only two sails, the sails of a sloop are larger than those of an equivalent cutter. Until the advent of lightweight sailcloth and modern sail-handling systems, the sails of a sloop could be a handful. So, until the 1950s, sailboats over 10 metres Length Over All would typically use a rig or a two-mast rig. After the advent of modern winches and light sailcloth, the became the dominant sailing rig type for all. No rig type is perfect for all conditions, sloops, with their paucity of spars and control lines tend to impart less aerodynamic drag. Compared to other rigs, sloops tend to very well when sailing close hauled to windward. Cutters, ketches and yawls are often preferred to sloops when venturing far offshore, because it is easier to reef small sails as the wind increases, while still keeping the boat balanced. To maximize the amount of sail carried, the classic sloop may use a bowsprit, for downwind sailing, the typical foresail may be replaced by larger curved sails known as spinnakers or gennakers
7.
Ketch
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A ketch is a sailing craft with two masts. The distinguishing characteristic of a ketch is that the forward of the two masts is larger than the after mast, historically the ketch was a square-rigged vessel, most commonly used as a freighter or fishing boat in northern Europe, particularly in the Baltic and North seas. In modern usage, the ketch is a rigged vessel used as a yacht or pleasure craft. To assist going to windward, a ketch may carry one or more jibs or foresails, if a ketch has no jibs, it is called a cat ketch or a periauger. On older, larger ketches the main mast may in addition one or more square rigged topsails. The large fore-and-aft sail on the mainmast is the mainsail, while the sail on the mizzen mast is the mizzen and these sails may be any type of fore-and-aft sail, in any combination. Most modern ketches are Bermuda rigged, but other possible rigs on a ketch include gunter rigs, the Scots Zulu, for example, had a dipping lug main with a standing lug mizzen. In northern Europe and among long distance cruisers, the ketch is often preferred to a sloop, since the additional sail allows a balance. An advantage of the ketch is when sudden increases in wind strength require a rapid reefing, the ketch rig also allows sailing only on the mizzen and jib, without introducing excessive lee helm, and in an emergency can be quite well steered without use of the rudder. When running before the wind or reaching across the wind, a ketch may set extra sails such as a spinnaker on the main mast, and a spinnaker or mizzen staysail on the mizzen mast. Another advantage of a ketch is at anchor, where the sail may be used to hold the boat steady in the wind. The square-rigged ketch was largely supplanted by the brig, which differs from the ketch by having a forward mast smaller than the after mast, and by the hoy, other similar craft include the snow and the pink. But the balance of sail area can be an overriding characteristic, if 20% or more of the sail area is in the mizzen sail the rig would be termed a ketch. This is particularly true on center cockpit yachts, compared to a ketch, a similar size yawls mizzen sail is much smaller than the main, because of the limitations of the mizzen sheet. So on a ketch, the purpose of the mizzen sail is to both propel and balance the vessel, while on a yawl, the smaller mizzen mainly serves the purpose of trim or balance. Yawls tend to have mainsails almost as large as those of comparable sloops, a ketch may be distinguished from a cutter or a sloop by virtue of having two masts rather than one, though a ketch with two foresails is sometimes called a cutter-rigged ketch. Both the ketch and the yawl differ from the two-masted schooner, if a vessel has two masts of approximately the same height, the rig with the larger sail forward is called a ketch, while the rig with the larger sail aft is a schooner. The American two-masted schooner is rare in Europe, where the rig is preferred
8.
Bermuda rig
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A Bermuda rig, Bermudian rig, or Marconi rig is a configuration of mast and rigging for a type of sailboat and is the typical configuration for most modern sailboats. Originally developed for smaller Bermudian vessels, and ultimately adapted to the larger, ocean-going Bermuda sloop, the Bermuda rigging has largely replaced the older gaff rigged fore-and-aft sails, except notably on schooners. The traditional design as developed in Bermuda features very tall, raked masts, a long bowsprit, in some configurations such as the Bermuda Fitted Dinghy vast areas of sail are achieved with this rig. Elsewhere, however, the design has omitted the bowsprit, and has become less extreme. A Bermuda rigged sloop with exactly one jib is known as a Bermuda sloop, a Bermuda sloop may also be a more specific type of vessel such as a small sailing ships traditional in Bermuda which may or may not be Bermuda rigged. The foot of a Bermuda sail may be attached to the boom along its length and this modern variation of a Bermuda mainsail is known as a loose-footed main. In some early Bermudian vessels, the mainsails were attached only to the mast and deck and this is the case on two of the three masts of the newly built Spirit of Bermuda, a replica of an 1830s British Royal Navy sloop-of-war. Additional sails were often mounted on traditional Bermudian craft, when running down wind, which included a spinnaker, with a spinnaker boom. The main controls on a Bermuda sail are, The halyard used to raise the head, the outhaul used to tension the foot by hauling the clew towards the end of the boom. The sheet used to haul the boom down and towards the center of the boat, the vang or kicking strap which runs between a point partway along the boom and the base of the mast, and is used to haul the boom down when on a run. The Bermuda rig developed from leg-of-mutton sails in Bermuda during the course of the 17th and 18th cnturies, the design was very useful on the gusty Bermudian waters for the boats that were the mainstay of transport around the archipelago into the 20th century. As Bermuda turned to an economy, after the dissolution of the Somers Isles Company in 1684, the rig was adapted to larger, ocean-going ships. The development of the rig is thought to have begun with fore-and-aft rigged boats built by a Dutch-born Bermudian in the 17th Century, the Dutch were influenced by Moorish lateen rigs introduced during Spains rule of their country. The Dutch eventually modified the design by omitting the masts, with the arms of the lateens being stepped in thwarts. By this process, the yards became raked masts, lateen sails mounted this way were known as leg-of-mutton sails in English. The Dutch called a vessel rigged in this manner a bezaanjacht, a bezaan jacht is visible in a painting of King Charles II arriving in Rotterdam in 1660. After sailing on such a vessel, Charles was so impressed that his successor, the Prince of Orange presented him with a copy of his own. The rig had been introduced to Bermuda some decades before this, Ships with somewhat similar rigs were in fact recorded in Holland during the 17th century
9.
Topsail
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A topsail is a sail set above another sail, on square-rigged vessels further sails may be set above topsails. On a square rigged vessel, a topsail is a sail rigged above the course sail. A full rigged ship has either single or double topsails on all masts, the single or lower topsail being the second sail above the deck, the bottom edge of the topsail, like that of other square sails, is slightly concave. Although topsails of a kind were used at least as early as Roman times, they first came into use in Europe some time in the 15th century. It was quite common for a ship to sail with topsails and jibs alone, the larger topsails were difficult and dangerous to handle in strong winds. Sometime in the 1680s, reef-bands were introduced to tie up part of the sail, with topsails eventually getting four of these, and reefing the sails became a regular occupation of sailors. In the mid 19th century, topsails of merchant vessels were split into upper and lower topsails that could be managed separately. Competing versions of the double topsail were invented by Robert Bennet Forbes, although Forbes strove to defend his rig, the Howe rig dominated. In the Forbes rig, both topsail yards are fixed vertically, in the Howe rig, the upper topsail yard slides on the topmast so it can be lowered in a few seconds to close reef the upper topsail. Howe had the foot of the upper topsail closely attached to the lower topsail yard, in 1865 the British clipper Ariel introduced a gap there. Forbes first tried his rig in the topsail schooner Midas in 1844. The clipper Climax built in 1853 under the supervision of Howes was the first ship with Howe rig, gaff topsails, like gaff rigs in general, may still be seen at Tall Ships gatherings. The gaff rig has been superseded by the Bermuda rig. On a gaff-rigged sailing boat, topsails may take a few different forms, a gaff-rigged vessel might have a gaff topsail above any or all of its gaff sails. A yard topsail is similar, but set on a yard, early 19th-century topsail yards were set almost horizontally, but gradually increased in angle until they became almost vertical extension of the topmast. A jack-yard topsail instead has its lower edge extended out beyond the end of the gaff with a short yard, a jack-yard topsail may also have the aforementioned vertical yard, although this makes for a very large topsail. A cornish topsail is a triangular sail having its luff extended well above the masthead by being laced to a yard hoisted by a halyard rove through a sheave fitted diagonally in the mast. The heel of the yard fits immediately about the gaff and is kept in place by a called a timminoggy. A square topsail is a sail, carried above the foresail only
10.
Mast (sailing)
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The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected more or less vertically on the centre-line of a ship or boat. Its purposes include carrying sail, spars, and derricks, and giving necessary height to a light, look-out position, signal yard, control position. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship, nearly all sailing masts are guyed. Until the mid-19th century all vessels masts were made of wood formed from a single or several pieces of timber which typically consisted of the trunk of a conifer tree. From the 16th century, vessels were built of a size requiring masts taller and thicker than could be made from single tree trunks. On these larger vessels, to achieve the height, the masts were built from up to four sections, known in order of rising height above the decks as the lower, top, topgallant. Giving the lower sections sufficient thickness necessitated building them up separate pieces of wood. Such a section was known as a made mast, as opposed to sections formed from pieces of timber. Jigger-mast, typically, where it is the shortest, the aftmost mast on vessels with more than three masts. On a two-masted vessel with the main-mast forward and a smaller second mast, such as a ketch, or particularly a yawl. Although two-masted schooners may be provided with masts of identical size, the aftmost is still referred to as the main-mast, schooners have been built with up to seven masts in all, with several six-masted examples. On square-rigged vessels, each mast carries several horizontal yards from which the sails are rigged. A two-masted merchant vessel with a sizable foresail rigged on a slightly inclined foremast is depicted in an Etruscan tomb painting from 475–450 BC. While most of the ancient evidence is iconographic, the existence of foremasts can also be deduced archaeologically from slots in foremast-feets located too close to the prow for a mainsail. Artemon, along with mainsail and topsail, developed into the rig of seagoing vessels in imperial times. The imperial grain freighters travelling the routes between Alexandria and Rome also included three-masted vessels, a mosaic in Ostia depicts a freighter with a three-masted rig entering Romes harbour. Special craft could carry many more masts, Theophrastus records how the Romans imported Corsican timber by way of a raft propelled by as many as fifty masts. Throughout antiquity, both foresail and mizzen remained secondary in terms of size, although large enough to require full running rigging
