Chapter 9

Which Rig-And Why? #2

We can start by passing up the schooner entirely. Any man with enough jack to own a schooner either will know a great deal about boats or will have the wherewithal to consult a naval architect concerning the pros and cons. Yawls and ketches are invariably cabin boats used for cruising or ocean racing. There are reasons for their choice, as we shall see.

One of the important necessities of the cruising yacht is that the sail area be divided into relatively small units which can be easily and quickly handled. Suppose, for example, we have a cruiser in need of 600 square feet of canvas. That is quite a hunk of stuff to handle. First, we divide it into three unequal parts: mainsail, mizzen, and headsails. Each part is small enough to be easily hoisted, lowered, and reefed. But more important yet, the three divisions open up the possibility of many adjustments to suit the weather conditions. To exaggerate the point, let us say that you put the 600 square feet in the one sail of a catboat. It would take a five-star expert to handle such a boat. Too many of his eggs would be in one basket. But when that canvas is divided into the three areas needed for a yawl or ketch, the skipper is better off. If the wind suddenly increases, he can drop his mainsail entirely and go on under just the headsails and the mizzen sail.

YAWL

If his boat is not steering too well, he can adjust the sails to correct the condition. It's a rare single-masted vessel that can be kept on its course if the skipper leaves his post for any length of time. Because the yawl and ketch rigs can be adjusted in more ways, they will actually sail for hours with the helms unattended. Before my scalp is tacked to the barn door, let me assure you that there are cases where sloops and cutters have been so perfectly balanced that they will hold courses with no hands at the helms. Those are exceptional cases which in no way negate the basic principal that a yawl or ketch is more easily handled on long trips at sea.

Now for the dangerous part of the discussion. Is the ketch or the yawl the better? If you are going in for ocean racing.
 
Howdy-do, Mr. Giltrox—you will ship an experienced crew. Your men will expect little or no sleep during a contest and will not tear you limb from limb if you hail them to a wet deck at 4 A. M. In that case, your choice will probably be a yawl. Your huge spread of mainsail will drive her fast —which is all you want in a racing craft. The tiny jigger will not pull enough to dislodge the cork from a bottle of Three-Star, but yawls get better time allowances than do sloops. In other words, the officials in charge of handicapping agree that the yawl rig is not quite as fast as that of the sloops, knockabout, and cutters; so they allow a yawl a little more time to get to the finish line.

Most yawls—say I, ducking the brickbats—are actually sloops with handkerchief-sized mizzens added to get better time allowances in handicap races. The older type of dyed-in-the-wool cruising yawl, with a large mizzen that has some real pulling power, has almost passed out of existence.

A ketch has the three sail units more evenly balanced in area. While not strictly true, it can be said that you can weather most blows by dropping the main entirely. There will be ample area left in the mizzen and the headsails to keep you going about your business. We can sum up the points by stating that the man who is not primarily interested in ocean racing, yet intends to go on long open-water cruises, will be better off with a ketch than he will with a yawl. Neither yawl nor ketch is a suitable rig for the small sailboat that is to be used for ordinary day sailing. Like the schooner, these two-masters are boats for deep-water cruising and racing. No two-master is proper for batting around Lake Nevva Seasic with your best gal. In boating, don't send a man to do a kiddy's work.

The vast majority of you intend to stay within sight of good dry land. For you, the choice is limited to the catboat, the sloop, or the knockabout, which are the three most popular single-stickers. There have been catboats built as big as 45 feet in length. There are also men who have eaten gallons of raw oysters at a sitting. The cat-boat, the dear little kitty, looks to be the simplest sort of craft in which to send Junior forth for his initial nautical experience. The boy just can't get into trouble, for he has but one sail to worry about. Oh, yeah? You've got but one head to think with, but you'd be sort of ruined if you lost it. In the hands of a good skipper, a catboat can be made to do anything but sit at the table and eat with the proper fork. In fact, most of the very little kitty boats—say those up to 16 feet in length— are pretty tame critters. But a much larger catboat can be a raging menace in the hands of a novice. Too much power is concentrated in the single sail. If a squall hits her and you must reduce the sail area, you will have to lower the sail, tie in the reefs, and hoist again. Sounds simple, but it will take close to half an hour of fingernail-wrecking work. While that is going on, you will be drifting more or less aimlessly under the urge of wind or current. Cat-boats are terribly efficient—and we mean terribly. They are among the few sailing craft that can take charge and go off on their own devious ways without asking your permission or even paying a good darn for your desires. Keep away, as you would from a blood-sweating behemoth, from the catboat that is too large for your boating skill. If you have a little one and she gets into trouble, you can drop the canvas and row home. But the big ones, even though roomy and fast, are rugged fare for the inexperienced.

All right, so it will be a knockabout or a sloop. There isn't much choice. The knockabout is probably better for youngsters and those elders who have little experience simply because the entire sail plan is within the deck area and you do not have to lie on your tummy handling a jib that is attached to a projecting bowsprit. In a sloop, you might even have to crawl out on the bowsprit to handle the outer jibs. That is no place for anyone not a nautical acrobat with the ability to hang on by a curled eyelash. My vote for the best rig for the not-too-highly-skilled man is the knockabout.

GAFF-HEADED KNOCKABOUTS

It is true that the major portion of the sail area is still in the mainsail and that the mainsail must be reefed in a blow. But you still have the jib, so in nine cases out of 10, you can drop the mainsail and keep moving someway under the jib alone. You may not go toward the place you want, but you can keep the boat in motion while you make such adjustments to the mainsail area as are possible.

So far, we have talked rigs as if all mainsails and mizzens were of the same shape. They are not. The popular sail of today is known variously as jib-headed, Marconi, or Bermudian. All mean the same thing: a mainsail or mizzen that is triangular in shape, the apex being at the masthead. The other normal shape for a sail hoisted abaft the mast is gaff-headed. Such a sail is rectangular rather than triangular, the upper edge being extended and supported by a spar called a gaff.

As was the case with the catboat, the simplest does not always work out as the easiest. The jib-headed sail is hoisted by but one halyard. It looks stylish and is unquestionably the fastest rig for racing. But to get an area equal to that of a gaff-headed sail, the mast must be higher. Such a mast is costly, is more apt to break, and requires a great deal more standing rigging to support it. The name Marconi came from the rig's similarity to Marchese Guglielmo Marconi's radio towers with their maze of wire stays.

Another point against the jib-headed mainsail is that all of its weight is supported from the apex of the triangle. Canvas stretches, so it is difficult to keep a jib-headed sail from getting baggy knees. The same thing happens to a gaff-headed sail, but a lot of the bagginess can be taken out by adjusting the sail by means of the two halyards that hoist it. You can also reef a gaff-header more easily. That is a bit hard to describe, but you can prove it if you want to experiment with a couple of pieces of paper. Cut one in the shape of a triangle and hold it lightly by the apex. Note how it inevitably swings so neither the luff nor the leach is vertical. Remember that the mast on a boat is almost vertical. A triangular sail supported from its apex must inevitably try to swing so that its forward edge is not vertical. Next, cut out the rough approximation of a gaff-headed sail and hold it at the center of its upper edge. It will hang there with no tendency to go out of shape. In lowering a gaff-headed mainsail, its forward edge will follow the vertical mast with no tendency to swing out. of shape. You still won't believe it until you have tried to reef both types.

On the other side of the question, the jib-headed sail is a great deal higher and narrower for a given area. It reaches up into air currents that would not be felt by the gaff sail. Also, its shape is more efficient, as you will agree after reading the following chapter, which is on why a boat sails. Being hoisted by but one halyard, it is simple to raise and lower once you realize that all of its weight is on the one halyard. The gaff sail, having two halyards, is raised by taking up a bit on each in turn, thus halving the actual load in pounds. Unquestionably the jib-headed rig is stylish so it appeals to those who want appearance first, last, and always.

Part of the reason that a gaff-headed sail is the slower is the fact that when filled with wind, the gaff swings so far forward that much of the power is lost, the most efficient power coming from the part that still remains a triangle. Yet, with all its faults, the gaff sail has an appeal for the more experienced cruising men. They like the lower mast, the safety factor of having the weight of the sail hung from two halyards rather than one, the greater ease in reefing, the absence of much standing rigging, and, in many cases, the feeling that a gaff-headed boat looks shippier than a tall, lean, and more exotic jib-header. For the utter novice, it still seems that a gaff-rigged knockabout is a better buy, everything taken into consideration. On the other hand, virtually all of the popular one-design boats have Marconi rigs. It is difficult to find a small gaff-headed craft on the new-boat market.

MARCONI KNOCKABOUTS

Of course, you can have a gaff-headed boat built to order. Perhaps this is as good a place as any to mention that having a boat built to order does not mean that she will cost more than a standardized craft. In fact, there are times when- you can actually save money by having a boat built for you rather than buying one of the mass-produced craft. If this statement seems to be exactly opposed to the usual idea that mass production cuts costs, it must be remembered that the production-line craft must be sold through distributors and dealers, each of whom makes a profit; that the boats must be advertised; and that other sales expenses must be incurred. Scattered throughout the country are thousands of small boat shops that build and service boats. They have little overhead, no sales staff, and no advertising. While such a shop will spend more for labor in building a single boat, the excess cost may well be less than the sales cost of the production-line craft. There is one word of warning in this connection. When ordering a boat from a small boat yard, be sure that you furnish the builder with plans drawn by a reputable naval architect. Boats that are built by eye or from sketches made on wrapping paper are never bargains at any price.

Naval architects design boats to suit their clients' requirements exactly. Since such a man is preparing a special or, as it is called, a custom design for you only, he'll of necessity charge you a sizable fee. His prices will start at a couple of hundred dollars and go up from there, depending on the size and complexity of the boat you want.

Some naval architects have stock plans that they sell for considerably less than what they get for custom designs. If you have admired the work of some designer but have hesitated at getting in touch with him because you have felt that you couldn't afford to pay him a large fee, try writing to him, inquiring whether or not he has stock plans.

Most of the leading designers belong to the Society of Small Craft Designers. If you don't know a naval architect's address, write to the Society's secretary, Luther H. Tarbox, 33 Lancaster Road, Spring Hill. Ala.

Stock plans are also available from firms that commission designers to prepare them and then sell them through the mail at moderate prices.

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