The sail has existed for as long as we can remember. Historians and scientists still argue on which continent and at what time the idea of hanging a piece of fabric to successfully move a boat in the wind was born. However, most experts agree that the Chinese sail (junk) claims to be the most ancient sailing rig.
However, already in the 10th century AD, Viking boats and drakkars were widespread in Northern Europe, on which they moved along rivers with oars, and in the open sea they put a mast with a rectangular sail. The square sail on the yard improved over the centuries and turned into a complex straight rig of a frigate with all its diversity: barque, barquentine, brig, brigantine, etc. Straight rigging was effective only with favorable winds and did not cope well with headwinds.
The oblique or lateen sail came to Europe from the Mediterranean Sea, where the tradition of using them had not been interrupted since the beginning of our era. Arab, Turkish, and Venetian ships sailed under such sails. The lateen rig allowed them to successfully tack against the wind. However, the oblique lateen sail had one drawback – a long, massive yard (rye), which was difficult to work with, especially on large ships. As a result, a split lugger rig appeared, where the sail was divided into two panels. Over time, the panel in front of the mast turned into a staysail, and behind the mast into a gaff mainsail.
The first sailing yachts were gaff-rigged. The emergence of yacht racing in the mid-20th century led to the rapid development of sailing equipment and an increase in its efficiency. To improve the aerodynamic properties of the wing, the gaff-rigged mainsail was transformed into a triangular Bermuda. This entailed complications in the design of the mast and rigging and required the use of more expensive and technologically advanced materials, such as duralumin alloys and stainless steel. A lip groove, spreaders and complex expensive winches appeared in the mast design in order to be able to take up the halyards under increased loads. The desire to be faster led to even greater complexity and increased cost of the design as a whole. Materials such as kevlar, carbon, dyneema and others come to sailing. An ideally shaped carbon fiber mainsail turns into an almost rigid wing with through battens. Even more increasing stress loads require the use of high-tech stoppers, winches and expensive modern running rigging. All this has caused an incredible increase in the cost of a yacht. The yacht industry has cheerfully picked up modern construction trends. Together with the monopolization of shipyards, yacht corporations everywhere began to popularize expensive modern Bermuda rigging, over the years displacing small private shipyards from the market. The more expensive and complex the rigging and the boat as a whole, the more it costs to build and maintain it, the more the manufacturer earns. As a result, a persistent stereotype has developed in society that a yacht is incredibly expensive, and everyone has long forgotten about junks and gaffs. But what does a romantic sailor really need to get to paradise islands with palm trees and drop anchor in a cozy bay with a sandy beach? And now the ordinary cruiser, who lives on his boat and travels the world, having chosen the Bermuda rig as the only one available, binds himself with strong ties to expensive service.
Let’s remember the advantages of the classics. The small height of the mast and the minimum amount of standing rigging simplify manufacturing and minimize maintenance. Both the junk and the gaff mainsail distribute the load evenly across the entire rigging due to the large number of attachment points. Because of this, there is no need to re-stuff the standing rigging and subject the hull to unnecessary stress. With a low sail area, the comfort and safety of sailing in stormy conditions increases. In light winds, the junk is certainly inferior in efficiency to other types of weapons, since the sail is almost flat, but it is so easy and quick to work with the junk that this more than compensates for this only drawback. Well, one can, without exaggeration, compose legends about the engine life and maintainability of the junk. In terms of efficiency and reliability, we consider the gaff mainsail to be the golden mean among all types of rigging: it already has the necessary potbelly and shape to pull the yacht well against light winds, but it does not overload (as, incidentally, does the junk) the rigging and spars – it is also easy to work with. The junk and gaff rigging are easy to repair on your own without involving outside specialists. Running rigging made of simple three-strand nylon rope is perfect for these types of sails. The absence of heavy loads allows you to do without the use of expensive deck equipment, such as winches and all sorts of stoppers. And about the efficiency of tacking, we can only add that, while operating our schooner on the sea, we have never canceled a voyage due to headwinds (even if they reached storm force) and always safely reached the destination.
At the same time, we are not against progress and beautiful racing boats with carbon sails, but let them be in their place, where they are supposed to be – at regattas. Today we see an absolute dominance of Bermuda rigging in 97% of cruising yachts around the world. The funniest thing is that the overwhelming majority of sea passages somehow reduce the use of the Bermuda mainsail to a minimum due to its bulkiness and unsafety. People often find it easier to untwist one genoa on the furler and not bother with raising a huge mainsail, which lies covered on the boom for years. Friends, stop complicating things, let’s learn to simplify our already high-tech yachting life: a low wooden mast, a gaff mainsail, three-strand ropes and an unstoppable, real desire for freedom.
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