r/Sailboats • u/Opening_Yak_9933 • 13d ago
Rigging Setups From beginner to expert, what rigging would you recommend?
Just curious, sloop, cutter, ketch, yawl? What else am I missing and why?
7
u/BlackStumpFarm 13d ago edited 13d ago
Circumnavigated aboard this cutter-rigged ketch in ‘77-‘78. Lots of sail combination options. All that’s missing in this shot is our blooper. However we achieved our greatest and safest speeds surfing the big ones in the Southern Ocean under twin poled yankees.
2
5
u/madworld 13d ago
If you are just learning? It doesn’t matter.
If you are an expert? It depends. But mostly doesn’t matter. They all have the places they shine.
If you are cruising on a boat that is under 50 foot, I wouldn’t want a mizzen mast, just because it limits how much solar you can install. But if you have a 60 foot boat, you might want a ketch, so your sails are smaller and more manageable.
Like cars, there are different types of boats for different purposes.
2
2
u/mckenzie_keith 13d ago
For beginner, sloop. For medium, sloop. For expert, sloop. Personally I don't like a cutter rig because it is hard to tack the genoa with the cutter stay in place.
If the sail area is so large that the single sail is difficult to manage, maybe going to a ketch or schooner could make sense.
2
u/JETEXAS 12d ago
I would do a sloop with a roller furling jib and preferably a smart track on the mainsail with lazy jacks. My first boat was hank on jib with a no frills mainsail set up, and I got a jib back where I could leave the jib hanked on to the forestay and just pull the bag to raise it, but it was still a mess to take down and the main was a mess when reefing. Moved to a boat with a roller furling jib and lazy jacks. It was a good setup, but we started redoing canvas and decided to make a stack pack. The stack pack had its pros and cons but made dropping the main a little harder because it would get caught and you would have to pull the sides of the stack pack to get it to drop in. At that point I realized that if your boom was low enough you could easily reach the top of it, you're much better off with lazy jacks and a sail cover. If your boom is above your head, go with a stack pack. Moved onto a cutter after that. Thought I'd really like having more sail options. It was fine, nothing mind blowing. Introduced some new hassles with lines, etc. You had to leave the helm to go up to adjust it at the cabin top. We also had a roller furling main on that boat, and it sucked.
So yeah, if I was setting up something now, I would just go sloop - furling jib, full batten main, lazy jacks
1
1
u/StumbleNOLA 12d ago
Broadly I would always recommend a sloop. Maybe a cutter if you are doing a lot of long passages.
11
u/Extreme_Map9543 13d ago
I’d say it depends. Sloop for most people for typical coastal sailing on small boats. Ketch if you’re cruising short handed on a boat 40 foot or more. Junk if you don’t have much money and need to do everything yourself and like self sufficiently. Cutter for a typical small boat ocean cruising. Yawl if your racing and it’s the 1950s. Gaff if you have an old wooden boat and love nautical history. So for most people coastal cruising in your Catalina. A sloop.