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What’s in a Rig? The Cutter Rig

By: Pat Reynolds Sailboat Rigs , Sailboats

What’s in a Rig Series #2

A variation on the last installment of What’s in a Rig (the sloop) is the Cutter Rig. Although it has gone through some changes through the course of history, the modern cutter rig is generally a set-up with two headsails. The forward sail is called the yankee and the one slightly behind it is the staysail.

Cutter rigs are a choice a cruising sailor might opt for more offshore work. Since longer passages usually means encountering heavier weather, the cutter rig can be the perfect choice to have a ready-to-go balanced sailplan when the wind picks up. They are not quite as easy to tack as sloops, but since cruisers go for days without tacking, the ability to quickly furl the yankee and have a small staysail up in a stiff breeze is worth the sacrifice.

Cutter rig fans also enjoy the balance it provides. A small staysail set farther back on the boat and a reefed main is a very solid arrangement on a windy day and for cruisers who want to be comfortable in 25-knots, this is important. Also, a staysail makes heaving-to easier – this is a task far more utilized by the cruising sailor.

So, there you have it – the cutter rig is a set-up preferred by sailors on a voyage. They have disadvantages in how they tack but strengths in how they behave in open-ocean conditions.

What's in a Rig Series:

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My Cruiser Life Magazine

Cutter Rigged Sailboats [GUIDE] Advantages, Sailing, Options & Features

Cutter rigs are often more prevalent in boating magazines and theory than they are in your marina. Most cruising sailboats are Bermuda rigged sloops with just one permanently attached headsail. So, are two headsails better than one? Or, are they double the trouble?

Table of Contents

• History of Cutters 

What is a Cutter Rig?

Cutter features, cutter rig options, sailing a cutter rigged sailboat, 5 popular manufacturers making cutter rigs, it takes two to tango, cutter rigged sailboat faqs.

History of Cutters

Cutters became popular in the early 18th century. These traditional cutters were decked (instead of open) and featured multiple headsails. Smugglers used cutters to smuggle goods, and the coast guard used cutters to try to catch the smugglers. 

Various navies also used the cutter rig. Navy cutters featured excellent maneuverability and were better at sailing to windward than square-rigged ships. 

Navies used cutters for coastal patrol, collecting customs duties, and “cutting out” raids. These “cutting out” operations consisted of a boarding attack. Fast, maneuverable cutters could stealthily approach an enemy vessel and board it. This type of attack was common in the late 18th century. 

US Coast Guard ships, now powerful, fast, engine-driven, steel vessels, are still called cutters today as a nod to their past.

A cutter rig sailboat has two headsails instead of just one. The jib is located forward and is either attached to a bowsprit or the bow. The inner sail is called the staysail and is attached to an inner forestay. 

Traditional cutters were built for speed. Today, cutter rigged sailboats are popular with ocean-crossing sailors, cruisers, and sailors looking for an easy to manage, versatile rig for all conditions.

It’s important to distinguish cutters from other types of boats with a single mast. Cutters regularly fly two headsails on nearly every point of sail. Many sloops are equipped to fly different-sized headsails, but it is unusual or unnecessary for them to fly more than one at a time.

Solent Rig vs Cutter Rig

A solent rig is traditionally called a slutter–a little bit sloop and a little bit cutter. This configuration features two large headsails mounted close together. The solent rig is good if you do a lot of downwind sailing. You can pole out both headsails and go wing-on-wing, with one headsail on the starboard side and one on the port side. 

If you are on any other point of sail, you can only use one solent rig headsail at a time. If you use the inner sail, the wind flow is disrupted by the furled forward sail. And, if you use the forward sail, you’ll have to furl it to tack because there’s not enough space between the forestays.

The solent rig is a way to add more sail options to a standard sloop. Most solent stays are not required rigging to keep the mast up, so owners remove them when not in use to make tacking the primary headsail easier. 

Advantages of a Cutter Rig

There are a lot of reasons to like a cutter. A cutter rigged boat has redundant rigging and spreads the sail load across its rigging. And a cutter rig offers increased sail options–it offers increased sail area in light winds and easy and efficient ways to decrease sail area in heavy weather. 

In heavy weather, a cutter will drop or furl her larger headsail – usually a yankee or a genoa. That leaves just the smaller inner staysail. This arrangement is superior to the standard sloop, which sails in high winds by reefing her headsail. The staysail, however, lowers the center of effort on the sail plan and maintains draft over the reefed mainsail. That makes the boat more stable, maintains performance, and reduces stresses on the rig. 

If you imagine the sailor going to sea and needing to reef, it’s easy to see how many more choices they have than the sloop sailor. While each sailor can reef their mainsail, a cutter skipper has full control over both headsails as well. 

Because a cutter rig spreads the load across two headsails, it’s easier to manage. There might be more sails, but each sail is smaller and has smaller loads on it. That makes cutters the preferred option for sailing offshore when short-handed, as are more cruising couples. 

Lastly, it has to be added that there’s something appealing about the traditional looks of a cutter. 

Disadvantages of a Cutter Rig

While there are many benefits of a cutter, there are drawbacks and disadvantages too. 

Sailors will have more lines to manage and more processes to think through. More sails mean more halyards and sheets. And when it comes to maintenance and upkeep, a cutter will have more standing and running rigging to replace, along with one more sail. 

Cutters are also harder to tack. You’ll be dealing with two headsails instead of just one. Many designs deal with this problem by making the staysail self-tacking. This has fallen out of favor, but it’s a great advantage if you find yourself short-tacking up or down rivers.

Regardless of whether you need to tack both headsails or not, getting the larger sail to tack through the slot and around the inner forestay is sometimes a challenge. Many skippers find themselves furling the headsail, at least partially, to complete the tack. 

Cutters need extra foretriangle room, which can mean adding a bowsprit, moving the mast back, or both. 

Cutter Rig Position

Looking at a cutter rigged sailboat diagram, you might see a bowsprit depicted. Often, cutters fly their yankee from a bowsprit. Bowsprits allow boat designers to increase the fore triangle’s size without making the mast taller. Other cutters don’t use a bowsprit and mount the yankee sail on the bow. 

A cutter sailboat might seem like more work. After all, there are two sails to trim and manage. In addition, you’ll have to perform maintenance on two sails and purchase and maintain double the hardware. 

However, the two headsail arrangement can be easier to manage when the sails are under load. Instead of having one jib or genoa to trim, the weight and pressure are spread across two sails. 

Mast Location

Today’s modern boat designers often focus on providing living space in the cabin. Designers often move the mast forward to create a larger, more open saloon. When the mast is forward, there’s less space to mount two headsails. A cutter sailboat needs a decent foretriangle area. 

A cutter rigged sailboat is also more expensive for boat builders. The deck must be strong enough to handle the inner forestay’s loads. Between the additional building costs, saloon design issues, and customers’ concern over increased complexity, boat builders often favor a single headsail. 

Easier on the Boat and Crew

Since the loads are distributed between two smaller sails instead of being handled by one large genoa. This means there’s less pressure on attachments points and hardware, and therefore less wear and tear. In addition, because there are separate attachment points on the deck for each sail, the load is distributed across the deck instead of focused on one spot. 

Because each headsail is smaller, the sails are easier to winch in, so the crew will find it easier to manage the sails.

There’s nothing cookie-cutter about a sailing cutter. From the cut of the jib to the configuration of the staysail, each cutter sailboat is unique. 

Yankee, Jib, or Genoa

Traditional cutters have a yankee cut headsail along with a staysail. The yankee is high-cut and usually has no overlap. The high cut improves visibility, and a yankee has less twist than a typical jib. By sloop standards, it looks very small, but on a cutter it works in unison with the staysail. 

A jib is a regular headsail that does not overlap the mast, while a genoa is a big jib that does overlaps. The amount of overlap is measured in percentage, so a 100-percent working jib fills the foretriangle perfectly. Other options include the 135 and 155-percent genoas, which are popular for sailors in light winds. 

The problem with using a big jib or genoa with a staysail is that there will often be a close overlap between the two headsails. If flown together, the air over the staysail interferes with the air over the outer sail, making each one slightly less efficient. In these cases, it’s often better to drop the staysail and leave it for when the wind pipes up. 

Roller Furler, Club, or Hank-On Sails

Sailors have many options to manage and store their cutter’s sails. Sailors can mix and match the options that work for them. 

Roller Furler vs Hank-on Sails

You can have both sails on roller furlers, both hanked on, or a mix of the two. 

Buying and maintaining two roller furlers is expensive, but it makes the sails easy to manage. You can easily unfurl, reef, and furl both headsails from the cockpit without having to work on the deck. 

Hank-on sails are fool-proof and offer less expense and maintenance. You can use a hank-on staysail, either loose-footed or club-footed, depending on your needs. Hank-on sails make sail changes easy and they never jam or come unfurled unexpectedly. 

The most common setup on most cutters is to have the larger yankee or jib on a furler, and the smaller and more manageable staysail hanked on.

Club-footed Staysail

A club-footed staysail is attached to a self-tacking boom. Since there is only one control sheet to handle, there’s a lot less work to do to tack from the cockpit. It tacks just like another mainsail. You can tack the yankee while the club-footed staysail self-tacks. 

Island Packets and many other cutters feature this arrangement, which makes tacking easy. 

However, a club-footed staysail takes up space on the foredeck–it’s always in the way. It’s harder to get to your windlass and ground tackle. In addition, it’s harder to store your dinghy on the foredeck under the staysail boom. The boom also presents a risk to anyone on the foredeck, since it can swing during tacks and jibes and is even lower to the deck than the mainsail boom.

Loose-footed Staysail

Keeping a loose-footed staysail on a furler clears space on the deck. Without the boom, you can more easily move around the foredeck, and you’ll have more space when you are managing the anchor. In addition, you can more easily store your dinghy on the foredeck. 

However, the staysail loses its self-tacking ability. You’ll now have to have staysail tracks for the sheet’s turning blocks and another set of sheet winches in the cockpit. When it comes time to tack the boat, you’ll have two headsails with four sheets and four winches to handle. Most owners choose to furl the outer headsail before the tack. Then, they can perform the maneuver using the staysail alone.

The good news is that most offshore boats are not tacking very often. If you’re on a multi-day passage, chances are you’ll only tack once or twice on the whole trip.

Downwind and Light Air Sails

There are a number of light air sails that will help your cutter perform better when the wind is light. Popular options include the code zero, gennaker, and asymmetrical spinnaker. 

Adding one of these sails to your inventory can make it a dream sailing machine. A code zero can be flown in light air. Since the cutter is already well equipped for sailing in heavy air, a light air sail really gives you the ability to tackle anything.

Sloop Rig, Ketch, and Yawl

While some describe a cutter as a cutter-rigged sloop or a sloop cutter, a modern sloop has one mast and one permanent headsail. 

But you’ll also find the cutter rig used on a ketch or a yawl. A cutter ketch or yawl offers a cruising sailor increased sail area and choices by adding the mizzen mast and sail behind. 

Sailing a cutter rigged boat is not that different from sailing a traditional sloop. Sailors will have to pay close attention to trim and tacking. 

Sailing a Cutter Rig to Windward

A cutter usually can’t point as high as a sloop when sailing to windward. The yankee hinders the staysail’s airflow, and the staysail starts to stall. 

Tacking a Sailboat Cutter

If you need to short tack up a narrow channel, and both your sails are loose-footed, you can roll up one of the headsails and just use one headsail to tack. Many staysails have a boom and are self-tacking. This means you can tack the yankee, and the staysail will take care of itself. 

Reefing a Cutter

A cutter sailboat has more options to easily get the right amount of sail. You can add a reef to your mainsail, then furl or reef the yankee a little, and then add another reef to the mainsail. As the wind increases, you can take the yankee in all together, and sail with a double-reefed mainsail and the staysail. Finally, you can add the third reef to the mainsail. Some staysails can be reefed, too.  

A cutter rig offers many options during heavy weather. For example, you may end up taking the mainsail down altogether and leaving the staysail up. Or, you might choose to replace the staysail with a tiny storm sail. 

Adding a storm jib on a sail cutter is much easier than a standard sloop. On a sloop, you’d have to remove the large genoa from the bow and then add the storm sail. This operation places the skipper in a challenging situation, which can be avoided on a cutter. 

On a cutter, you can remove the staysail and add the storm jib to the inner forestay. Working a little aft of the bow will give you increased stability while managing the staysail’s smaller load.  

While many modern sailboats are sloop-rigged, cutter-seeking sailors still have options. 

Rustler Yachts

While many new yachts have ditched the sturdy offshore cutter rig in favor of greater simplicity, Rustler is making a name for themselves by bringing it back. It’s still one of the best options for offshore sailing, and it’s great to see a modern yacht company using the rig to its full potential. 

The Rustler doesn’t need a bowsprit to accommodate its cutter rig. The Rustler is set up for single-handed and offshore cruising with all lines managed from the cockpit. Their smaller boats are rigged as easier-to-sail sloops for coastal hops, while the larger 42, 44, and 57 are rigged as true cutters with staysails and yankees.

Cabo Rico Cutters

Cabo Rico built cutters between 34 and 56 feet long. They aren’t currently in production but often come up on the used boat market. They are beautiful, semi-custom yachts that turn heads where ever they go. Of all the cutters the company built, the William Crealock-designed Cabo Rico 38 was the most long-lived, with about 200 hulls built. The second most popular design was the 34. The company also built a 42, 45, 47, and 56—but only a handful of each of these custom beauties ever left the factory. Most of the larger Cabo Ricos were designed by Chuck Paine.

Cabo Ricos have bowsprits, and the staysail is usually club-footed, although owners may have modified this. Cabo Ricos are known for their solid construction, beautiful teak interiors, and offshore capabilities. 

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Hold Fast Sailing (@sparrowsailing)

Pacific Seacraft

Pacific Seacraft features a full line of cutters. Pacific Seacraft boats are known for their construction, durability, and overall quality.

Just a few of the best-known cutters built by Pacific Seacraft include the following.

• Pacific Seacraft/Crealock 34
• Pacific Seacraft/Crealock 37
• Pacific Seacraft 40

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jeffersön Asbury (@skipper.jeff)

Island Packet Yachts

Island Packet boats are probably the most popular cutter design available today. Designer and company founder Bob Johnson created beautiful cutter-rigged full-keel boats with shallow drafts that were very popular around Florida, the Bahamas, and the east coast of the US.  

Island Packets are known for their comfortable, spacious layouts. Older models could be ordered from the factory as either sloop or cutter-rigged. The result is that you see a mix of the two, as well as plenty of cutters that have removed their staysails to make a quasi-sloop. 

Island Packet is still in business today, but now favors solent-rigged sloops with twin headsails. 

View this post on Instagram A post shared by SV Miette (@sv_miette)

Hess-Designed Cutters

Lyle Hess designed several famous cutter-rigged boats, including the Falmouth Cutter 22 and the Bristol Channel Cutter 28. These gorgeous boats are smaller than most cruising boats but are a joy to sail. Lyle Hess’ designs were popularized by sailing legends Lin and Larry Pardey, who sailed their small wood-built cutters Serraffyn and Taleisin around the world multiple times.

These beautiful cutters have a timeless look like no other boats. They have inspired many other designs, too. You’ll find them built from both wood or fiberglass, but a variety of builders and yards have made them over the years.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Professional photographer (@gary.felton)

Cutter rigged boats offer cruising sailors a flexible sail plan that’s perfect for offshore sailing. Sailors can adjust the amount of sail according to the current wind conditions. Traditional cutters were known for being fast and agile, and today’s cutters carry on the tradition with pride. 

What is a cutter rigged yacht?

A cutter rigged yacht features two headsails. One headsail, usually a high-cut yankee, is all the way forward, either on a bowsprit or the bow. The staysail is smaller and attached to an inner forestay.

What is the advantage of a cutter rig?

A cutter rig offers cruising sailors more flexibility. They can easily increase and decrease the sail area and choose the optimum combination for the sailing conditions. While there are more lines and sails to handle, each sail is smaller and therefore easier to manage.

Matt has been boating around Florida for over 25 years in everything from small powerboats to large cruising catamarans. He currently lives aboard a 38-foot Cabo Rico sailboat with his wife Lucy and adventure dog Chelsea. Together, they cruise between winters in The Bahamas and summers in the Chesapeake Bay.

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Why the Cutter Rig Sailboat Is My First Choice for Cruising

The cutter rig sailboat has two jibs, the foremost one usually a high-cut yankee set on the forestay and the other a staysail set on an inner forestay. It's a flexible, easy to handle rig, which is why I - along with a lot of other cruising sailors - am such a fan of it.

Admittedly a cutter rigged sailboat is not quite as efficient to windward as a sloop rigged version, but its other benefits outweigh this small mark against it.

Often both foresails are on furling gears, but I prefer to have a furling gear on the forestay only so that I can get rid of the hanked-on staysail and replace it with a hanked-on storm jib if I need to.

The inner forestay (or cutter stay) exerts a forward load on the mast which has to be resisted. This usually achieved by either aft-intermediate stays or running backstays.

Types of Cutter Rig Sailboats

There are two variants of the cutter rig:~

One where the yankee is set on a bowsprit and the staysail attached to the bow.

This arrangement is normally found on heavy displacement sailboats , as a way of increasing the size of the fore triangle without having to extend the height of the mast.

No Bowsprit

The other where the whole rig is contained inboard, with no bowsprit like the sailboat on the right.

You'll find cutter rigs on sloops , ketches and yawls too.

Examples of these are shown below:~

Tacking a Cutter Rig Sailboat

This is slightly more complicated than with a sloop as you've got two headsails and an extra pair of sheets to deal with when going about. Here's how we do it on Alacazam :~

• centralise the mainsheet on its track;
• put the helm over and release the yankee sheet as she goes through the wind;
• let go the working runner and set the other one;
• let go the staysail sheet and haul in on the working yankee sheet;
• haul in on the the staysail sheet;
• trim the yankee until the telltales are flying nicely, then do the same with the staysail and finally the main.

Many staysails are set on a self-tacking boom, which means that going-about is simplicity itself. However, unless you do a lot of short-tacking with both headsails set, this benefit is outweighed by the additional hardware. In my view, that is!

The staysail boom may well mean that you won't be able to stow your upturned dinghy on the foredeck. Not that this is an issue in Harmonium's case as she carries her dinghy in davits.

Reducing Sail on a Cutter Rig Sailboat

Reefing a cutter in deteriorating conditions usually goes like this:~

• put first reef in the mainsail, then;
• put a few rolls in the yankee;
• put second reef in the mainsail;
• furl the yankee completely;
• put third reef in the mainsail.

This will leave you with a deep reefed mainsail and a staysail set on the inner forestay, which should serve you well right up to full gale conditions. It's storm jib and trysail territory after that.

Off The Wind with a Cutter Rig Sailboat

On a reach you'll find it very easy to balance your sailboat perfectly with a cutter rig, such that the windvane self-steering gear will have no difficulty in keeping her on course.

But when the wind drops and falls well aft of the beam the staysail (now blanketed by the mainsail) starts to flap and disturbs any airflow into the yankee, you're effectively sailing under mainsail alone.

With a sloop you'd probably pole the genoa out to windward in these conditions and sail wing-and-wing.

This isn't an option with the cutter rig as you'd be under-canvassed with just a yankee set on the forestay - you'll need a spinnaker, a prospect that doesn't fill some sailboat cruisers' hearts with joy.

On Alacazam we just drop both sails and hoist our colourful asymmetric spinnaker, which is a classy name for a cruising chute.

Alternatively you could turn your cutter into a slutter...

The Slutter Rig

Slutter isn't a formal term - it sounds a bit derogatory - but most cruising sailors will know what's meant by it.

It's so called because it's a combination of a sloop rig and a cutter rig, the crucial difference being that a furling genoa is set on the forestay in place of the yankee, but no staysail is set (initially) on the inner forestay.

This is a sloop rig at this point, so windward ability isn't compromised at all, and the genoa can be poled out when sailing downwind.

The inner forestay is likely to prevent the genoa blowing through smoothly when you go about, so it's best to roll it in a few turns before you go through the wind.

Reducing Sail on a Slutter

Reefing a slutter in deteriorating conditions might go like this:~

• roll a few turns in the genoa
• roll a few more turns in the genoa
• first reef in the mainsail
• second reef in the mainsail.
• furl the genoa completely and hoist the staysail
• third reef in the mainsail.

As with the conventional cutter you've now got a deeply reefed main and staysail which will sail through all but the most depressing conditions.

So what's it for you, slutter or cutter rig sailboat? We usually set the cutter rig on Alacazam , as it's a great reaching rig for cruising through the Windward and Leeward Islands of the Caribbean.

Other popular rigs for cruising offshore...

Is the Cutter Rig Superior to the Solent Rig for Offshore Cruising?

Both the cutter rig and the solent rig provide the offshore skipper with a choice of foresails to fly, but there the similarity ends. So what's the difference between these two rigs?

Is The Ketch Sailboat the Best Type of Sailboat for Offshore Cruising?

It's true that the ketch sailboat with its split rig can make an attractive cruising sailboat for a short-handed crew, but there is a downside to these types of sailboats

What Are Cat Ketch Sailboats and Do they Make Good Cruising Boats?

Seen alongside the complexity of a conventional sailboat, it's easy to imagine that the unstayed rigs of cat ketch sailboats represent the future for cruising sailboat designs.

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Sailboat Cutters: The Ultimate Guide

Introduction:.

Sailboat cutters are a distinct type of watercraft designed specifically for sailing enthusiasts and adventurous individuals seeking thrilling experiences on the open water. These boats are meticulously crafted with features and functionalities that enhance the sailing experience. This typically includes spacious cabins, comfortable seating areas, and efficient sail handling systems. In this comprehensive comparison, we will delve into the key characteristics of sailboat cutters, including their design, features, rigging options, and explore the top sailboat cutter brands available in the market.

Sailboat Cutter Design and Purpose:

Sailboat cutters are meticulously designed to facilitate comfortable and efficient sailing journeys. These boats typically feature a hull design focused on stability and seaworthiness, enabling them to navigate various water conditions, from coastal cruising to extensive offshore passages. Sailboat cutters often boast spacious cabins with well-appointed sleeping quarters, a galley equipped for cooking meals, and a salon perfect for dining and relaxation during your sailing adventures.

Sailboat Cutter Key Features:

Cruising Amenities: Sailboat cutters are equipped with a wide array of amenities to enhance the cruising experience. These may include comfortable berths, a fully functional galley complete with a stove and refrigerator, a marine head featuring a shower, and ample storage space for provisions and personal belongings. Some models even offer additional features like air conditioning, heating systems, and entertainment systems to elevate onboard comfort.

• Sail Handling Systems: Sailboat cutters are equipped with efficient sail-handling systems that make sailing a breeze. These systems often include roller furling headsails, in-mast or in-boom furling mainsails, and electric winches for effortless control of the sails. With these advanced features, sailors can easily adjust the sails to adapt to changing wind conditions without the need for extensive manual labor.
• Stability and Performance: Sailboat cutters prioritize stability and performance to ensure a smooth and enjoyable sailing experience. These boats generally possess a moderate to heavy displacement and incorporate a keel or centerboard to provide stability. They also minimize excessive rolling in rough seas. Sailboat cutters are designed to strike a balance between speed and comfort, allowing sailors to embark on long-distance cruising with confidence.

The Cutter Rig:

The cutter rig distinguishes itself by featuring two headsails. An inner forestay equipped with a smaller headsail (known as a staysail) in addition to the genoa or jib. This rig offers increased sail area and flexibility in sail combinations, enabling sailors to adjust to varying wind conditions more effectively. The cutter rig is particularly popular among cruisers planning offshore passages.

Appropriate Buyers and Considerations:

Sailboat cutters are ideal for individuals passionate about sailing and those seeking comfortable and self-sufficient accommodations for extended journeys on the water. When considering a sailboat cutter, potential buyers should take the following factors into account:

• Cruising Style: Determine the type of cruising you plan to undertake, whether it’s coastal sailing, offshore passages, or long-distance voyages. This will help you choose a sailboat cutter that is specifically designed and equipped for your preferred cruising needs.
• Accommodation Needs: Evaluate the number of people you intend to accommodate on board and ensure that the boat provides adequate sleeping quarters and living space to ensure comfort during extended stays. Consider the available amenities, such as a fully equipped galley, a marine head, and sufficient storage capacity for provisions.
• Budget: Sailboat cutters vary in price depending on factors such as size, brand, features, and rigging options. Establishing a budget and researching different models within your price range will assist you in finding the sailboat cutter that best meets your requirements.

Top Sailboat Cutter Brands:

When searching for a sailboat cutter, it’s crucial to explore reputable brands known for their quality construction, exceptional performance, and sailing-specific features. Here are three top sailboat cutter brands worth considering:

Hallberg-Rassy:

Hallberg-Rassy is a renowned brand in the world of sailboat cutters, known for its impeccable craftsmanship, seaworthiness, and luxurious interiors. With a legacy spanning over six decades, Hallberg-Rassy has established itself as a leading name in the industry. They deliver sailboat cutters that offer exceptional performance and comfort on the water.

Hallberg-Rassy sailboat cutters are meticulously designed and constructed. They place a strong emphasis on both form and function. Their robust hull constructions prioritize stability and durability, ensuring a smooth and safe sailing experience. The interiors of Hallberg-Rassy sailboat cutters exude elegance and sophistication.  With spacious accommodations, exquisite finishes, and thoughtful layouts Hallberg-Rassy prioritizes comfort and convenience.

Hallberg-Rassy Key Features:

• Impeccable Craftsmanship: Hallberg-Rassy sailboat cutters are built with an unwavering commitment to craftsmanship and attention to detail. Every aspect of the boat, from the joinery work to the choice of materials, reflects the brand’s pursuit of excellence.
• Seaworthiness: Hallberg-Rassy sailboat cutters are designed for bluewater cruising; with a focus on stability and performance. The combination of a well-balanced hull shape, a deep keel or centerboard configuration, and a robust rigging system ensures exceptional seaworthiness and handling.
• Luxurious Interiors: The interior spaces of Hallberg-Rassy sailboat cutters are meticulously crafted to provide a luxurious and comfortable living experience on board. Spacious cabins, well-appointed galleys, and ergonomic seating areas create an inviting and sophisticated atmosphere.

Sw https://www.nautorswan.com/ an:

Swan sailboat cutters embody the perfect synergy between elegance, performance, and luxury. With a rich heritage and a legacy of producing top-quality yachts, Swan has earned a reputation for excellence in the sailboat cutter market. Swan sailboat cutters are designed to deliver exceptional performance and an unparalleled sailing experience.

Swan sailboat cutters are characterized by their sleek lines, graceful profiles, and outstanding performance on the water. Their sailboat cutters offer a harmonious blend of speed, comfort, and seaworthiness. The interiors are designed to provide luxurious and sophisticated living spaces, featuring high-quality materials, elegant finishes, and customizable layouts.

Swan Key Features:

• Performance-oriented Construction: Swan sailboat cutters are engineered for exceptional sailing performance. With innovative hull designs, lightweight construction materials, and advanced rigging systems, Swan sailboat cutters offer impressive speed, agility, and maneuverability.
• Luxurious Interiors: Swan sailboat cutters provide sumptuous and well-appointed interiors, designed with meticulous attention to detail. From spacious cabins to lavish saloons, every aspect of the interior is crafted to offer comfort, style, and a sense of luxury.
• Cutting-edge Technology: Swan sailboat cutters embrace the latest technologies to enhance performance and onboard comfort. State-of-the-art navigation systems, integrated entertainment setups, and advanced control systems ensure a seamless and enjoyable sailing experience.

Island Packet:

Island Packet sailboat cutters are renowned for their focus on comfort, durability, and ease of handling. With a dedicated following among cruising enthusiasts, Island Packet has established itself as a leading brand in the sailboat cutter market. Island Packet sailboat cutters are designed to provide a balance of performance and livability, making them ideal for extended offshore passages and comfortable cruising.

Island Packet sailboat cutters feature robust construction, prioritizing durability and reliability. Their sturdy hulls, full keels, and generous displacement contribute to exceptional stability, sea-kindly motion, and ample storage space. The interiors of Island Packet sailboat cutters are thoughtfully designed. They provide spacious accommodations, functional galleys, and well-protected cockpits that ensure a comfortable and enjoyable cruising experience.

Island Packet Key Features:

• Solid Construction: Island Packet sailboat cutters are known for their robust construction and attention to detail. The use of high-quality materials, reinforced fiberglass hulls, and superior bulkhead structures ensures longevity and reliability.
• Comfortable Interiors: Island Packet sailboat cutters prioritize comfort and livability. Spacious cabins, ergonomic galley setups, and well-appointed living areas create an inviting and cozy atmosphere for extended stays on board.
• Self-sufficiency: Island Packet sailboat cutters are designed to enable self-sufficiency on extended journeys. With large tank capacities, ample storage, and robust electrical and plumbing systems, Island Packet sailboat cutters provide the necessary amenities for comfortable and independent cruising.

The sailboat cutters produced by Hallberg-Rassy, Swan, and Island Packet represent the pinnacle of craftsmanship, performance, and comfort in the market. Each brand offers its own unique combination of design principles, key features, and exceptional qualities. Whether you prioritize impeccable craftsmanship, elegance, and speed, or comfort and self-sufficiency, exploring the offerings of these top sailboat cutter brands will lead you to find a vessel that provides an unforgettable sailing experience, combining both luxury and functionality.

Conclusion:

Sailboat cutters offer dedicated features and functionalities to enhance the sailing experience for enthusiasts and adventurers. When considering a sailboat cutter, it’s crucial to assess the design, cruising amenities, rigging options, and accommodation to ensure the boat aligns with your specific cruising requirements. Exploring reputable brands such as Hallberg-Rassy, Swan, and Island Packet will aid you in making an informed decision and finding a sailboat cutter that seamlessly combines comfort and performance on the water.

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The Equator

• 12 Reasons The Cutter Is A Great Offshore Voyaging Rig

OK, before a war starts, if you prefer a ketch, a sloop, or a some variant of a cutter, like a solent rig, that’s just fine and I’m sure that your preferred rig is great for you.

Having got that out of the way, do read on because there is no question that a properly set up true cutter rig is insanely great for short-handed offshore cruising. Also, many ketches and sloops can, with a little effort and expense, be converted to gain at least some of the benefits of a true cutter.

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More Articles From Online Book: Sail Handling and Rigging Made Easy:

• Six Reasons To Leave The Cockpit Often
• Don’t Forget About The Sails
• Your Mainsail Is Your Friend
• Hoisting the Mainsail Made Easy—Simplicity in Action
• Reefs: How Many and How Deep
• Reefing Made Easy
• Reefing From The Cockpit 2.0—Thinking Things Through
• Reefing Questions and Answers
• A Dangerous Myth about Reefing
• Mainsail Handling Made Easy with Lazyjacks
• Topping Lift Tips and a Hack
• Cutter Rig—Should You Buy or Convert?
• Cutter Rig—Optimizing and/or Converting
• Cruising Rigs—Sloop, Cutter, or Solent?
• Sailboat Deck Layouts
• The Case For Roller-Furling Headsails
• The Case For Hank On Headsails
• UV Protection For Roller Furling Sails
• In-Mast, In-Boom, or Slab Reefing—Convenience and Reliability
• In-Mast, In-Boom, or Slab Reefing —Performance, Cost and Safety
• Making Life Easier—Roller Reefing/Furling
• Making Life Easier—Storm Jib
• Swept-Back Spreaders—We Just Don’t Get It!
• Q&A: Staysail Stay: Roller Furling And Fixed Vs Hanks And Removable
• Rigid Vangs
• Building A Safer Boom Preventer, Part 1—Forces and Angles
• Building A Safer Boom Preventer, Part 2—Line and Gear Strength Calculator
• Downwind Sailing, Tips and Tricks
• Downwind Sailing—Poling Out The Jib
• Setting and Striking a Spinnaker Made Easy and Safe
• Ten Tips To Fix Weather Helm
• Running Rigging Recommendations—Part 1
• Running Rigging Recommendations—Part 2
• Two Dangerous Rigging Mistakes
• Rig Tuning, Part 1—Preparation
• Rig Tuning, Part 2—Understanding Rake and Bend
• Rig Tuning, Part 3—6 Steps to a Great Tune
• Rig Tuning, Part 4—Mast Blocking, Stay Tension, and Spreaders
• Rig Tuning, Part 5—Sailing Tune
• 12 Great Rigging Hacks
• 9 Tips To Make Unstepping a Sailboat Mast Easier
• Cruising Sailboat Spar Inspection
• Cruising Sailboat Standing Rigging Inspection
• Cruising Sailboat Running Rigging Inspection
• Cruising Sailboat Rig Wiring and Lighting Inspection
• Cruising Sailboat Roller Furler and Track Inspection
• Download Cruising Sailboat Rig Checklist

Very timely article as I just resumed sailing our (yes…) cutter this week. While our forestay is on a short bowsprit, and our staysail is large, our setup is very much in the cutter mould, and I agree with your points.

The barber-hauling a Yankee jib top idea, however, is intriguing. I also hope to hear your thoughts on poled-out “twins” as an alternative to an assymmetrical/cruising spinnaker.

You can find my thoughts on poled out twins (twisle) in the comments to Colin’s excellent chapter in this book on poling out .

One thing though, poled out twins are an alternative to a poled out jib set with the main. They are not an alternative to a spinnaker (asymmetrical or otherwise) since they don’t, in most cases, have enough area to fill that function.

Point being that even if you go with a twin jib downwind rig, you will still need to either motor, or set a spinnaker and tack down wind, once the true wind gets lower than about 12 knots. (Exact wind speed will depend on your tolerance for going slowly listening to the sails slat and bang—my tolerance for said is low.)

Hi John, Is it ok to be sitting, smugly smiling, but only in the privacy of Alchemy’s cabin? Having lived for 13+ years on a true cutter, I enjoyed reading through your 12 points saying “Yes, he got that one”, and “Yes, well put”. I will be interested in the response to your points. In casual conversations and occasional serious consults with some on rig design, I have mentioned these numerous points and most times those who I am talking with just seem to not get it. Aside from my skills as an explainer, I wonder to what degree you need to actually experience these attributes over time and in varied conditions to appreciate their worth. A couple of spin-off thoughts: I really hate using the phrase “true cutter” although I understand why you do so do and feel compelled to do so as well. I would vastly prefer cutter to be used fitting your definition and double headsail sloops used to describe those boats that are not able to fly 2 headsails going to wind (either because their J/slot is too small or their jib is deck-sweeping and large etc.) I really do not like the shape of a reefed roller furled sail or what happens to the sail cloth/shape when reefed. So I really like that I do far far less roller-reefing with my rig, a true cutter rig. The time when I really “need” to is when I need punch upwind into seas. Off wind or reaching the forces on the sail are less and reefing the jib topsail is not so distasteful. I feel like my jib top will last a lot longer as it does not get mangled reefing so often. You mentioned heaving-to with the staysail. It is a pleasure to be able to go so without second thought. Those of us with protuberances (radar, reflecotrs etc.) on the face of the mast might need to reef the staysail a bit to clear these items when hove-to. If I forget, the leach rubs against the radar. I do not carry a storm staysail and have not ever come close to wishing for one (and hope I never will). Question: I have read that roller furling manufacturers have a caveat that says that their furlers should not have a sail reefed more than 75-80% or so. The argument is that the they like the stresses (tack and clew move up as you reef) as close to the strength of the furler- the 2 drums- and that the more reef the more strain on the joints in the furler. Do you know anything about this: either as a safety measure for the furling system or as it pertains to the manufacturers? Thanks for a nice article. Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

Lots of good additions to my post, thank you.

To answer your question about roller reefing more that 75-80%. I had never heard that, and there is certainly no mention of that restriction in the manuals for our Harken roller furlers. Further, we have been reefing our jib-top way past that for years without any issues.

So, in summary, I think I would reject any roller furler that had that restriction as being inadequately built.

A thing you didn’t mention, John, is the need for running backstays. I would agree that they’re not much of a problem (and even less so nowadays with Dyneema) and it could be validly argued that they add to the security of the mast.

Our rig is not a “true cutter” inasmuch as the inner stay goes close to the mast head (thus obviating the need for running backstays) but it is set well back from the forestay (1m back on a 12.5m boat) allowing us to set both headsail at the same time.

We sail with a yankee and wishbone staysail. The two seem to work quite happily together despite the converging stays with the head of the staysail about 3m below the top of the stay. Tacking and oling it out couldn’t be easier!

I would be interested in knowing if any of you have experience with Dyneema sails? Not laminate but woven Dyneema cloth stitched with Tenara PTFE thread. Our sailmaker is trying to convince me that this is the way to go, particularly for furling headsails, and his price is not so unreasonable. He reckons that the sail will be lighter, just about immune from stretch and and can be furled and used in winds that would distort a polyester (dacron) sail permanently.

The cloth feels amazingly tough and the Tenara thread is said to be immune from UV degradation. I’m very tempted.

I will be covering running backstays in part 2 on cutters.

Yes, I have tried Dyneema sails. My first set for this boat were made from Spectra (the same thing I think) and they were great, or at least the second attempt was: The first attempt delaminated after just one Newport Bermuda Race, bad news.

The good news is that Dimension (the cloth manufacturer) immediately admitted that they had a problem with our batch of cloth and replaced the sails free of charge. That set went a good 40,000 miles before losing shape.

When that set wore out, we went to HydraNet. So far (around 20,000 miles) I would say the performance of the Hydranet (Spectra / Dacron blend) is on a par with the pure spectra.

Hi Pat. Your boat seems to have a nice rig. I have no experience with the cloth and thread combo you mention, but my initial thought is that is sounds good. Should be possible to get some comments from sailors that have tries some years though?

In -93 I was sailing in the Formula multihull classes in Europe. Very extreme boats. We used some Spectra/Mylar headsails, mostly a code zero one season. Bright green shiny stuff… Laminated, not woven. Quite different from what you mention, but Dyneema is mostly another brand of the same as Spectra, I think.

We noticed that the threads would slowly “creep” or stretch some. That would not be a problem for sail shape as it was even and we of course would trim the sails non stop, but after some races the sails did not look good. It seemed that the Mylar didn’t cope too well with the creep.

I’m pretty sure what your sailmaker suggest is materials that behave quite differently, and more than 20 years of development makes a change. However, it would be interesting to hear what your sailmaker thinks of this creep issue in this type fibre.

Hi John, I would add another way of looking at (and adding up) much of your list: cutters can be much safer boats. Especially when one notices your added excellent distinction, “insanely great for short-handed offshore cruising” (bold added).

Short handed means you have no reservoir of bodies to do the work necessary to keep the boat running well. Day sailing (and by that I include coastal cruising which is largely day sailing) this hardly matters: you will be resting in a snug anchorage/marina at end of day and you will have 2 bodies to do the work. Offshore most couples are largely single-handing and sleep/rest is harder to come by. A boat easy to sail will sail fast and its crew will be less likely to be fatigued and make errors. Another plus is an easy boat to sail may feel it less likely to “need” extra crew for longer passages. Yes, invite crew for social reasons or to spread the work, but I have met many cruisers who felt compelled to have crew for longer passages. I usually only knew this because they would grumble about what a hassle it was: finding crew, meeting deadlines, personality quirks etc. “Short handed” and “offshore” add a whole element to boat design and use which are far less important for boats used largely as day sailors. Again, one may need to have had the experience of fatigue, seas sickness, work load and general interminable-ness of a difficult passage to fully appreciate the impact. I know I needed the reality as my imagination was in no way up to the task (this underlines your suggestion for prospective offshore skippers to find a way to crew on a passage ahead of time). My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

Hi Pat, Check out HydraNet radial sailcloth. It may be what your sailmaker is suggesting. We have 3 sails with this cloth now for 2 seasons and have been very happy. Others on AAC have made positive comments on HydraNet radial in the past which I suspect you could find by a search. Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

Thanks, Dick. The cloth he showed me is not a mixed fibre laminate like HydraNet Radial but 100% woven Dyneema. Good to hear that you are happy with HydraNet. Do you know what it is stitched with? In my experience it’s often the stitching that gives way first.

I agree on the stitching. That’s what went first on our Spectra sails. Having said that, by the time the stitching let go the shape sails were pretty stretched out—don’t believe that spectra does not stretch, or at least creep—and so we would have replaced them anyway.

I’m very interested to learn more about the thread your sailmaker is proposing, will google.

Hi Pat, I know we went over the stitching, but I forget the details (I could find out). Not being an expert in this area, I ask many questions, but when I get the feel that the sailmaker has things (and my interests) well in hand, I let go of the details. I know we discussed using the “best” thread (Goretex? Teflon? something familiar like that) but he felt the thread was far too abrasive for his particular needles/machines to tolerate. In any case, I always request overlaps sufficient to put an extra row of stitching which I tend to have done prophylactically after a few years (3-5) of use. My best, Dick

As someone who has a pretty even distribution of sailing on sloops, cutters, ketches and schooners, I would agree with your overall conclusion that a cutter rig generally makes the most sense for shorthanded offshore sailing. For boats at the smaller end of the scale, I think that a sloop with a removable solent stay/inner forestay or a double headsail rig can make a lot of sense. Also, for people who spend a lot of time sailing coastal and go offshore occasionally, I think that these rigs can make a lot of sense although they are not quite as ideal as a cutter once offshore. An intriguing setup to me is substituting jumper shrouds for running backstacks to support the inner forestay loads. My biggest complaint with cutters that don’t use massively strong mast sections is the running backstays and they have been the source of some of my scariest moments while sailing.

I think that a lot of your reasoning can be applied beyond the cutter rig. For example, your point about the shape of the jib applies beyond cutters. We have hank-on sails and our favorite one (ie the windspeed we hope for) is our 100% working jib with a high cut clew as we can see really well under it and we don’t need to move the jib car when changing points of sail. In general, I think that a lot of people put huge overlapping decksweeping genoas on boats in an effort to make them sail well at really low wind speeds but don’t realize how much they hurt the performance once the wind comes up.

One slightly off the subject thought is that I am increasingly thinking that jib car tracks may not be the best way to control the jib sheet lead. I have seen setups where people have a single permanently mounted block slightly aft of the furthest aft sheet lead position ever needed and then 2 twings mounted much further forward, one inboard and one outboard that pull down and either inboard or outboard. These twings give you the ability to raise and lower the effective lead and also move it inboard and outboard. My limited experience with a single twing is that you can adjust them by hand even under fairly high sheet load so it could make adjustments much easier and safer. The downside is that you have created an obstruction on the side deck (I also wonder about banging in light airs) but you eliminate the track with its potential to really hurt toes and lead to annoying leaks. Hopefully this isn’t too off topic but it has been on my mind and may be a solution to many of the sail trim problems for people with low cut genoas. If I ever finish my other project lists, I might just have to try it.

Lots of good and interesting thoughts, as always. Like you, I don’t believe a cutter always makes sense and I generally agree with your criteria for when it does. I will be looking at this in more detail in part two.

I have never had much of a problem with runners. I’m guessing that perhaps your scary moments came on big schooners where a runner foul up can cost the rig, and maybe even lives? Anyway, more thoughts on making runners easier to live with in part two.

Twings are interesting, and fun too! We used them a lot on 505s, both for the jib and spinnaker, and also E22s. Having said that, I’m not sure they really belong on the average offshore boat, for just the reasons you state.

Jumpers are intriguing too. Many Saga 40s (the English boat, not the American one of the same name) are rigged that way, and it seems to work well for them. That said, I really like the mast stability that runners provide in big seas. In fact I go as far as to say that any offshore boat should be fitted with runners for just that reason, once again, more in part two.

You are right that a lot of my experience with runners has been on boats where they will lose the rig if you make even a momentary mistake. This has been a combination of large gaff rigged vessels and fractional rigs where you always have to have one runner fully on. I actually came reasonably close to losing a hand several years ago when I slipped while releasing a runner. While I find the runners on cutters to be much easier, I have realized more than once that a crewmember was winching in a runner that had wrapped a spreader which could potentially cause a rig failure too.

If anyone has tried eliminating the jib track and just going to twings, I would love to hear the results. On our boat, the biggest obstacle to this will likely be how to organize the control lines back at the cockpit.

It’s certainly true that running backstays are critical on some boats to provide adequate fore-and-aft support for the mast whenever a load is applied to the inner forestay. However, many cutters use runners only to maintain tension on the inner forestay and prevent sagging in the luff of the staysail; as this function is not critical (especially when sailing off the wind), scary moments should not typically arise. I guess what I am trying to say is that people should not necessarily be put off by running backstays, it depends upon the individual design.

“Like you, I don’t believe a cutter always makes sense”: John, the absence of absolutist dogma is what makes your articles valuable.

Some Of the benefits you describe can be added to boats born as sloops.

I was able to add a removable inner forstay and running-backs to my 44 foot sloop. My thinking surrounded accommodating a hanked-on storm jib. Offshore I often left the stay attached, and used it and the running-backs to stiffen the mast. The jib would tack through without too much hassle.

That extra rigging kept the mast up when, right at midnight watch change I heard a bang that sounded like a shotgun had gone off. My crew asked if we’d hit something.

I said, “I hope so.”

The stainless tang attaching the head stay to the boat had sheered. The head stay, with the furler and sail had snapped through the forward stanchion and was dangling as a big heap back near the cockpit. It was a bit of a fire drill to sort things out and get moving again. All it took was an anchor shackle to get the forstay re-attached. If you can call it lucky, I was fortunate that the failed hardware was at deck level.

Without the inner forstay attached, there wouldn’t have been anything standing to jury rig and I would have been in deep yogurt in the middle of the Pacific.

Stedem Wood

A sobering story indeed. In part two I will be looking at retrofitting as a cutter and writing of one of my long held beliefs: every offshore boat should have running backstays and a staysail stay. Your experience strengthens my conviction on that, thank you.

I hope I’m not too annoying when I add yet another comment. 🙂 I also agree that the cutter rig is a great rig, for all the reasons given in the text, and then one more important one: The compound foil effect, which I’ll try to explain here, as kind of a supporting elaboration of Johns #12 Cutters are faster.

As described by John, the smaller and better organized sails can more easily be trimmed well. That means the slots between the sails are also aligned better. This point is more important than it might seem. If you look at the wings of passenger airplanes at takeoff and landing, they extend the wing area by sliding the rear end further back to get more area and curve it down to get a bigger pressure. But also they get a slot in front of the flaps. They get compound foil wings.

This is because they have much lower speed but need the same lift as at cruising speed. That they get by pointing the nose very high and getting a much higher angle of attack. Without the slot opened in the wing, that angle would mean the wings would get a turbulent flow and the plane would drop like a brick.

Any rig, no matter what configuration and no matter how many sails, has a single flow / pressure system around it. It can be seen as one single wing. Each sail collects some energy from the wind and changes the speed and direction of the flow reaching the next sail. This means that on very tight angles, going max upwind, the rig that creates the biggest forward power for a given area, is a single foil rig. Just one sail. The “cat rig”. At that point, the efficiency difference to normal rigs is big, because the first sail makes it impossible to get much forward power from the following sails. There’s just not enough available angle.

If we point lower, the advantage drops quickly. When we reach, the single sail rig is less efficient than a rig with several sails because the combination of sails and slots makes it possible to alter the flow direction more, getting more power, without stalling the sails. If you sheet in a sail too much, as you all know, it will create less power. An “array” of sails cooperating can get past this, just as the planes do. The forward sail is trimmed to give max. Then the next, but it will be sheeted in more because of the altered flow from the first sail. The third even more. Seen together, they act as different elements of one single wing. This is very powerful.

The slots between the sails create an accelerated flow speed that will add energy to the total flow and make the flow at the leeward side of the rig keep its direction without collapsing even at extreme angles of attack. Quantifying the effect needs specific boats and rigs, but as a very rough guide, a three element wing (cutter) may accept (much) more than twice the total angle of attack than a single element foil (cat). A two element foil, (sloop) will be in between. The higher angle translates directly into almost the same increase in power, but the power vector is of course angled more sideways. Still the resultant gain in forward drive is considerable.

There is even one more positive effect of a compound foil rig. The center of effort will be much lower than on a cat type rig of the same area. That means the boat can handle the power better and translate it in into speed. The Volvo Ocean Race boats are sloops, but most of the time they reach and they have at least three element rigs, sometimes four, for this exact reason. The Americas Cup foiling 72-foot catamarans with full wings, also use slots when going downwind, at a steady 40-knot boat speed…

If you think this is interesting, and can tolerate some mathematical formulas on every page, (you don’t HAVE to understand them to understand the topics) you could read the book: ”Aero- Hydrodynamics of Sailing” by Professor C A Marchaj. That’s a big book, very nerdy and quite old now, but will take you deep into understanding this topic and much more. This is the “Bible”.

John, Agree with all you say about the practicality of a cutter rig. On a techie note about the performance, what you have is “cascade” of airfoils, which area for area can generate more lift (technically a higher lift coefficient) – like the flaps that aircraft deploy when landing and taking off. But there is a drag penalty to go with it. When very close hauled in flat water in lightish winds (when the apparent wind is as far forward as it will go), this drag matters (technically what matters is to maximise the lift to drag ratio under these conditions, which does not coincide with the point of maximum lift.) Under these conditions a single 100% headsail will likely be best, as seen on many fast yachts, and in the extreme on the latest breed of America’s Cup cats. As soon as the going gets tougher and you sail more slowly relative to the wind speed, the apparent wind comes around a bit, and you then also maybe sail off a few degrees to power through the waves, the cutter rig comes into its own. The angle of the forces (I can draw diagrams if anyone is interested) now start to favour the high lift, high drag cutter cascade of sails. Free off a bit more and the advantage starts to really show. So not only a practical rig, but under most cruising conditions an aerodynamically efficient one too. Just because most production yachts are sloops with a lot of genoa overlap does not mean it is the most aerodynamically efficient rig, just the one that most folk think is best since it is what they have seen on racing yachts for many years, but these boats are designed to race within rules, which is not necessarily the same thing as being the most efficient in terms of total sail area. It also happens to be a low cost option, so a perfect solution for production boat builders.

Colin Palmer

Hi Colin. We were apparently typing our posts simultaneously. We talk about mostly the same interesting property, but with slightly different angles. Hopefully to the effect that it’s easier to grasp. I support all you say completely, of course.

Hi Stein and Colin,

Nerds rule! Seriously, thanks to both of you for very clear explanations of the science behind the cutter speed advantage in waves and reaching.

Ha ha. Thank’s John. That made me look for the “Like” button under your post. 🙂

I just remembered a picture from Team Brunel rounding the Cape Horn in the last edition of the Volvo Ocean race. It illustrates the impressive power of a rig with many cooperating sails. I’m a multihull fanatic, but I love the heading picture in the article I link to below. This level of pushing a boat to the limits makes me really long for getting out there! Beautiful!

Definitely agree with your observations on cutters. Over the 24 years we’ve been sailing our Mason 44, we’ve varied between sailing as a sloop and sailing as a cutter (the original design of the rig). Several years ago, we upgraded our mast to a Hall CF spar along with some other modifications. After the rig change, we had the 130 genoa and main built. After a season sailing as a sloop, we had the Yankee and Staysail built…after our experience sailing again as a cutter, the genoa is living in the basement. The boat is just as fast, seems to point a bit better and the sail combinations when reducing sail work well since we’re not sailing with a furled up headsail. Tacking in light wind can be a bit of work, but we’re adjusting and enjoying all aspects. Will look forward to your tips and techniques.

Thanks for the insights.

Sounds like we have an identical shared experience in that when I bought our boat she had a 120% #2 genoa on the foil. She also had a jib-top and staysail in bags. After a month I changed to the cutter rig, and a year later I sold the #1 and #2 genoas.

John and other cutter savvy readers,

Thank you for the very valuable cutter evaluation and description. I learned a lot about my own boat from this. We have a Brewer 44, with a cutter rig.

Do you have any cutter-specific tips for dealing with weather helm using the cutter rig? From a casual comparison, MC and the Brewer seem to share a similar hull form, with large stout keel and skeg hung rudder, and the rig proportions seem similar as well. Therefore I would anticipate the two vessels would behave similarly in similar conditions, and have similar responses to excessive heel, and such.

The previous owner bent a genoa on the foil, but it has a pretty high clue, as our sheets lead to almost the cockpit. The staysail has a low clue, so I think she comes pretty close to the “cutter rig” you described. When we get loaded up with a fresh breeze over twenty knots, the helm starts getting pretty gnarly and recently we even broke the steering cable in the gulf stream when a front came early and brought 20 knots from forward of the beam.

The previous owner tightened down the backstay pretty good, and I suspect it was to flatten the sails and reduce power to combat the helm. When we start getting helm, we ease the main and depower the vang to twist off the top of the leach, but still struggle to balance her.

Any cutter-centric tips to get her nose a bit more windward-phobic would be great! Thanks in advance!

That’s an interesting question that I have had several times. So, rather than tackle it in a comment, I’m thinking I will do a new chapter in our Sail Handling Made Easy online book. May take me a little while because I’m face and eyes (as they say in Newfoundland) into the Adventure 40 at the moment, but it’s now on the list.

One question, how old and how hard used are your sails?

Good point. I had my Yankee restitched last year and the improvement was immediate. I would also note that stay tension is rarely optimal in most cruisers (unless they come from a racing background and obsess over such things), but is critical to getting the most out of the cutter rig.

I think you mean recut, not restitched. Restitching would not make any difference to sail shape and weather helm.

It was both, actually…I took the opportunity offered by an untimely tear to have it trimmed as well as repaired. I’m lucky to have an understanding sailmaker!

Thanks John and Marc,

John, the sails are in pretty decent condition I would say. I am going to hazard a guess and say 65% life in the dacron left. We have not had to restitch any structural seams yet(we have re-covered with sacrificial sunbrella on headsails) and there is no visible deterioration or problems.

That said, they are all atleast 10 years old(we have had the boat for 7), and it is a Florida boat, so maybe they are more worn out than I realize. They dont have that many miles on it, so I would be shocked to find out that they have been pushed really hard and stretched.

Maybe this is a question for your next chapter, but lets say one of the two sails are stretched out and has excessive belly to it, thereby decreasing the lift to drag ratio, would the jib or main be contributing to weather helm?

Obviously, in normal circumstances, depowering the main reduces weather helm, but after reading some of Steve Dashew’s books, they counter-intuitively found that their high roach mains, although generated more power, reduced weather helm because they were more efficient and therefore had less drag.

thank you so much in advance! Best, Conor

The interesting thing is that poor sail shape can cause weather helm regardless of whether the jib or the main are the culprit. I think there are a whole bunch of reasons for this, but probably two of the most important are that poor sail shape causes higher angles of heal and if the shape is blown back and the leach tight the centre of effort of each sail will, I think, be further aft.

Hello John:

I have a question, not a comment. What is your opinion in utility between a club footed staysail, and a lose footed staysail. I have seen a slab reefed club footed staysail once and thought it a novel idea as it kept the reduced sail lower (slab reefed onto the club foot). I suspect you could do a similar rig using a wishbone foot as well.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I’m not fan of boomed staysails. Just too much deck clutter and complication for a very small benefit. As to getting the sail lower, I just don’t think that would make any real difference here, because we are dealing with such small sail area with a staysail anyway.

A comment: My staysail is hank-on and is loose-footed, and I carry a smaller staysail in heavier cloth for heavier weather. I have considiered, however, a line of reef points in the larger staysail as an alternative to the “storm staysail”. It’s not a common modification, however I think it offers some advantages.

A roller reefing / furling staysail has served me well for over 20 years. We also carry a storm jib, but have never had to use it because the loads are so low on a reefed staysail. I far prefer this to trying to reef a headsail with points. More here: https://www.morganscloud.com/2013/06/01/how-to-heave-to-in-a-sailboat/

I suspect our situations are somewhat different in that I have a rapidly growing third crew (a teenaged boy) and the staysail stay terminates in an anchor well, providing considerable shelter even in a lively sea. If I got to field-test a free furler (which I now consider essential for the Yankee jib…what a nightmare that would be to access were it hank-on) on the staysail stay, I would consider it, but to date, simple works.

Now, in light of your heaving-to piece, we do have to pay attention to sail area, and a full drop and a reefed down main might be necessary to do so. We’ve recently changed mains and can’t get off the dock until I complete the battery system, so I lack heavy weather data points, but I agree that experiementation and attention to details such as available sail area forward vs. rudder aft come into play. I could heave to my Viking 33 light-ish fin keeler with little problem…it just took practice and clearly marked shock cord. One improvement I can see worth paying for is adjustable staysail sheet leads, which at sea goes beyond “nice to have” to “essential” when you are trying to heave to between swells. We already have triple-blocked mainsheet tackle, vang and a really sturdy Garhauer triple-blocked traveller that is (finally) going in this summer. But the old pin stop tracks may have to go in favour of what you are advocating.

I’m new to the site but learning a lot from your great posts, especially this one. I am a full time cruiser with my wife Nancy. We sail an Island Packet 420: 42 LOD, 45LOA. She is cutter rigged with a Hoyt staysail boom. From your article it is clear to me that I need to replace the head and staysail. The stay because it needs it and the head because it is a 130% geneoa. I have a couple of questions before I replace those sails:

1. Your posts about stay sails usually reference a sheet track on the cabin top. What are your thoughts on the Hoyt staysail boom? Does the Hoyt serve the same purpose and does it function better or worse than a track.

2. When I replace these sails I plan to go with a jib top sail as you recommend. Do I need to be concerned with cut? Should I go with a straight cut or should I consider one of the radial cuts? We currently cruise the eastern Pacific and Mexico, but plan to transit the canal to the Caribbean for few years and then back through the canal for passage to the South Pacific.

Thanks so much for your help and your efforts to share your knowledge and experience with the sailing community.

Thanks for the kind words.

I have never used a Hoyt boom, so I don’t have a solid opinion. I guess one disadvantage would be that I think I’m right in saying that if you reef the staysail, say to heave-to in a gale, there would be no way to move the sheet lead forward to maintain decent set.

And as to your second question on sail cut, you will find the answer in the next two chapters: https://www.morganscloud.com/2015/10/04/cutter-rig-optimizing-andor-converting/

Hi John, …”To tack Morgan’s Cloud double- or even single-handed, we simply ignore the staysail and let it back on the new tack until we have tacked the jib-top, which slides through amazingly easily along the staysail and its stay. Once we have the jib all squared away, it’s a simple matter to tack the staysail”…Any reason you wouldn’t want a self-tacking rail on your staysail (other than the little bit of extra work, admittedly possibly in difficult conditions, required to secure the clew backed upwind in order to heave to in heavy weather)? Seems like it would nullify one of the very few (!) drawbacks to a cutter rig!

Hi Matthieu,

A self tacking rig is actually surprisingly difficult to do well since the optimal sheet block position for the staysail is well aft the mast making a track running across the boat impractical. Also, it’s important to be able to move the sheet lead forward as the staysail is reefed, which is pretty much impossible with any sort of self tacking rig.

Thanks John, food for thought, very useful points should I ever look at buying another cutter and consider modifying it!

Agree 1000% with John and others comments on the advantages of cutter rig for cruising We have one with same sail configuration at John’s photo, but hank on staysail Of the rare occasions that we do not bother to set it, we regret it half of them If it blows up, staysail and triple reef main go well. If winds are light then the jib is harder to tack without the staysail to hold aback

Hi John, A number of times you reference your dual roller furlers as significant in your choice of jib top sizing and in why the cutter rig is your choice for shorthanded offshore. What would be your suggestion if someone was going to use hank-on sails? I assume you’d still recommend the cutter? What sizes of jib-tops would you choose if you could only have 2 for a voyage?

The honest answer is that, having sailed with roller furling for so many years, I really don’t know. And back in the day when I changed jibs it was on a race boat where we had at least 6 of them to choose from ranging from a drifter to a tiny #4 known as “the go to hell jib”.

That said, a lot of it will depend on your sailing style, size of the boat and number and strength of the crew.

I guess I would think about a 100-110% jib top, and one of about 60% LP, but probable still say 80-90% full hoist, what we would have once called a spitfire jib.

Have a look at this post, which may help: https://www.morganscloud.com/2012/03/08/hank-on-sails/

I apologize if I you have already spoken somewhere about what I am about to ask and I have missed it…

1. Does your solution of poling out your jib-top serve as your complete solution for downwind sailing, or do you use some flavor of spinnaker in lighter air? 2. Does the combined area of your fully unfurled jib-top and staysail, about that of a 140% genoa, serve as your complete solution for light air upwind sailing?

To give some context to my questions, my wife and I are sailing a 1979 Shannon 38 “cutter-ketch” (has a staysail) on ever more wide-ranging passages, but are currently in the camp of those with a boat “fitted with a low-cut jib that is used alone in light to medium winds and then when the wind further increases it’s rolled up and the staysail is set.” I have had a strong desire to ditch our 135% genoa in favor of yankee and staysail flying together even before reading this chapter, but I have been fretting about light air and how much we prefer to avoid motoring and therefore thinking about supplementary Code Zero sails and asymmetrical spinnakers. However, the cost and complexity and storage demands of adding such things to our older boat are not at all appealing, and, in a way, frankly don’t “feel right.”

We do have one moderate angle reaching light air sail – an ancient mizzen staysail. We have recently started using it. Thanks in advance for any light (a bit of a pun intended) you can shed on our situation.

Hi Richard,

1). We have an asymmetric spinnaker set in an ATN sock for light air off wind work when the true wind is below about 14 knots.

2). Yes, the yankee and staysail are all we have up wind. Works fine down to about 8 knots true wind speed.

However one thing to know is that our boat has a relatively big rig for her type. As I remember the Shannon has a relatively smaller rig, and is also a full keel boat (we are fin-skeg) so you may end up motoring a bit more than we do up wind, particularly since a ketch is less efficient than our cutter rig up wind and you have relatively more wetted surface.

That said, the mizzen staysail is a great option in light air reaching to add sail area in a manageable way.

Given the short rig of the Shannon I think you will definitely want an asymmetric spinnaker and I can highly recommend the ATN sleeve as a way to set it.

As we near the end of the New England sailing season, I wanted to take a few moments to report back on our outcome…

We stashed our deck sweeper 135% genoa below and put a 110% “yankee cut” genoa on the forestay roller furler. I simply refer to the new sail as the “yankee” and we now routinely sail with yankee and staysail. We also replaced the original spinnaker pole with a modern whisker pole fixed to the mainmast that my wife and I, both aging cruisers, can manage more safely and efficiently (we judged the increased windage tradeoff to be worth it) and added an asymmetrical spinnaker to our inventory.

I am ecstatic about the results! We moved home base back to Buzzards Bay from Salem this year and the coronavirus pandemic caused us to restrict our wandering to coastal cruising in the Bay and Islands (Elizabeth Islands, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket; hoping plans to sail to Bermuda or Nova Scotia can be rekindled next year or the year after), so we have had far fewer light wind days in our old stomping grounds and more ability to be picky about having a good breeze to sail in and perhaps my report needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, we are almost ridiculously happy sailing our Shannon 38 with yankee and staysail and have no complaints about our ability to keep the boat moving despite her short ketch rig and somewhat cutaway full keel.

Great to hear the cutter rig worked out for you. Particularly interesting given that the boat is a ketch with a comparatively small foretriangle, which puts paid to the idea that one must have a huge foretriangle to be a viable cutter.

RUNNING and BROAD-REACHING OUR CUTTER We are ten years into a five year circumnavigation on TIGER LILLY’S second time around, and (typically) spend a lot of time sailing with the wind well aft of the beam. (I HAD to tell her it would only take five years, because I would never have gotten her out here if I told her the more realistic twelve…) TIGER LILLY is a CSY44 true cutter with a miter-cut yankee (on a PROFURL), a stays’l (also on a PROFURL), and a full-battened high-roach main (short rig, so we needed more power in light conditions). The inner-forestay is opposed by permanently rigged intermediate shrouds. On ocean passages we steer with wind vane self-steering gear. When running or broad-reaching we sail wing-on-wing with the yankee on a fixed pole to windward, and the main vanged-down with a preventer lead to the bow. We also set the stays’l, reefed and double-sheeted to the centerline – flat a a piece of tin. The flat stays’l accomplishes two important tasks: A) It dramatically dampens the roll by adding a fore and aft element to the rig. B) It helps keep the head down when it wants to come up on the wind in a puffer – significantly easing the job of the WVSS gear. (We use the stays’l as a wind rudder forward…) The CL flat stays’l does not effect boat speed one way or the other, but it makes a very positive contribution to comfort and steering while on passage down wind – both important advantages to a short-handed, over-the-hill cruising couple. (LILLY sez: “over-the-hill”? Speak for yourself Hot Shot!) We are weathering-through the CV19 pandemic, self-isolating in the beautiful Ilha Grande Archipelago of Brazil; we hope to spend Christmas in Buenos Aires, and then continue down to Patagonia in the New Year. We regularly recommend AAC to new sailors interested in bluewater sailing. Thanks for continuing to teach an old dog new tricks. Warm regards, Tom & Lilly S/V Tiger Lilly Abraao Village, Ilha Grande, Brazil ??

Hi Tom and Lilly,

We set up just as you do for downwind sailing, except we have never tried the staysail like that. I’m surprised it doesn’t fill back and forth as the boat rolls, even flat sheeted, and drive you nuts, but clearly it does not, so we will have to try it.

And thanks for the kind words, all the more treasured considering the source.

And above all, stay well, particularly since you are so far from home which must add a bunch to general COVID induced anxiety.

Hi John, thanks for your excellent articles on safe sailing techniques and methods. I greatly appreciate the expert advice. I have a CSY 44 cutter rigged with a self-tending “club foot” stays’l. What advice/tips do you have for a self-tending stays’l re: upwind, reaching, and downwind performance? Reefing and heaving to? Any other advice? Thanks Wind Gypsy Rick

I’m afraid you are asking the wrong guy, since I’m a jib-boom hater. I guess I could see the point of them back in the day, but now we have good self tailing winches I just don’t see the point of cluttering up the foredeck with them. (I’m not even a fan of the self tacking staysails on the Boreals). So, if it were me, I would just get rid of the boom.

That said, it’s not a trivial change because you will need to install staysail tracks (probably on the cabin top) and quite likely add winches. If you do decide to do that I have a bunch of tips and photos here: https://www.morganscloud.com/2015/10/04/cutter-rig-optimizing-andor-converting/

We just installed our new “Yankee” cut 100% jib on our 1997 Island Packet 40. It replaced a 135% Genoa with all the unhelpful features your article described. I wanted a sail more appropriately sized for our typical conditions in Hawaii and did a lot of research, including reading your material, before having this sail made.

We sailed her yesterday in 10 to 20 kts apparent off Waikiki. The difference was stunning. No more flogging with boat roll, way less sheet tension, no need to adjust sheet car position with different points of sail, and we easily tacked without needing to reef and use the stays’l as a funnel. And, best of all, it works WITH the stays’l on a close haul or reach, not AGAINST it. I’ve never been able to achieve tell tails flying back with all three sails up; now all three sails happily draw in concert. Anyway, I just wanted to offer another example of what is possible with a different style of headsail.

Oh, and my wife really likes the reduced heel 🙂

Shaen Tarter SV Arctic Tern

One more thing. I removed my Hoyt boom a long time ago. The stays’l work better without, and especially now.

Good move, particularly on an offshore boat.

That’s a great and well thought out endorsement of the cutter rig, thanks.

I suppose admitting ignorance is a FORM of intelligence… I own (and love) a Carter 39 rigged as a cutter, even though most (all I found) were sloops. Great boat, great ride, but it was a serious racer in her day, and is much more complicated than the boats I’ve sailed to this point. I can sail her reasonably efficiently, but know I’m getting nowhere near her actual potential. I am on Lake Ontario, and would like to hire someone or at least correspond with someone with experience with this rig from an operational/design standpoint. Suggestions?

I don’t know anyone in your area, but an experienced sailmaker is often a good source for rigging advice, as long as they have some short handed cruising experience. That said, we have a lot of information on efficient rigging in this online book that may help https://www.morganscloud.com/category/rigging-sails/book-sail-handling-rigging/

Also, if you have specific questions, and ask them on the relevant chapter, I and/or other members, maybe able to help.

The arguments here against low-footed, large-overlap genoas seem pretty convincing, as is the proposed solution: convert to a cutter. However, In my “Roller Furling” comment* I give a case where a cutter conversion and roller furlers mightn’t be practical, and where a big genoa may be the only option. So I’m very interested in any work-arounds that might minimise the downsides listed here such as hosing the main with foul air etc.

I appreciate that AAC and its followers are likely to favour the cutter (for good reasons), and that there might be other cruising forums where large genoas are accepted. However, most forums aren’t as good as AAC so I thought it worth asking the question here.

*https://www.morganscloud.com/2012/03/23/handling-roller-furling-sails/#comment-308304

I’m considering the purchase of a performance cruising boat that is setup as a true cutter. The sails are very old so if I go through with the purchase I will be looking to buy a new sails soon. While I have offshore voyaging in mind, that won’t be a reality until I retire (and that’s the better part of 10 years away). Most of my cruising will be coastal until then. My sailmaker said that “ I find that most people are not going with a true yankee these days even on a cutter rig. They are going with a high enough clew for visibility, but low enough to be able to sail upwind on Genoa alone.” Given my use case, would such a sail plan make more sense until I truly head offshore?

That’s a common view, but not what I would do. To me the advantages of a high cut yankee are too compelling, see the rest of this series. The way I look at is that if we are going to have a low cut jib, we are actually a sloop with a staysail and not a cutter.

Anyway, unrolling the staysail up wind is easy and given that the stay will always be there, you will still have to tack the jib over it, so where is the gain in this? All that’s going to happen is that you will need more overlap to make up for the lost staysail, and that’s a big downer.

To me your sailmaker’s recommendation only works if you can remove the inner stay, at least temporarily, and be a true sloop while sailing inshore and that maybe a bad idea if the rig was designed with the inner stay. But if you can be a true sloop inshore, that might make sense, as long as you don’t need to go over 120% overlap to make this work. More on that option in these chapters.

As to the “most people” part of the recommendation, I would discount that since most people, including most sailmakers, don’t understand cutters and have never sailed a true one properly set up.

Thanks you John for your thoughts on this. This particular boat is designed to sail as either a sloop or cutter, and among the limited production run (about 20 hulls), I see that the split seems to be 50/50, with those folks sailing inshore favoring the sloop with overlapping genoa and those headed offshore going with a true cutter configuration. My plan is to eventually develop this boat into a true dual purpose cruiser/racer so that I can do some short-handed ocean racing (Newport Bermuda is my ultimate goal). While it has the cutter rig, it doesn’t seem to be optimized as such based on what I’m seeing. The inner stay seems to be only 25% of the way back from the forestay (no bow sprit), and the staysail tracks are in line with the genoa/Yankee tracks, just further forward. So, it doesn’t seem “optimized” as a cutter rig as you have specified. I also wonder how much upwind performance I’m giving up with the Yankee. Sailing to weather is important to me and I do so quite often. Those are the issues that make me think I may be better off with a genoa for inshore/coastal sailing until such time that I start heading offshore. I have zero experience with a cutter rig. I guess the prudent thing to do is try it both ways if I buy the boat. The sails are old but it does also come with a genoa. Thanks again. Very helpful.

If she is not optimized as a cutter then fix that, based on these articles, or go with the sloop option. Half-assed cutters are a lot of what gives cutters a bad name. To make a cutter work we must get the slot between all three sails right.

As far as close windiness and racing, we won the double handed class in the Bermuda race twice as a cutter, and one of the races had a lot of upwind work in light air. We were also first boat in fleet on corrected time in one race. (They didn’t give us the lighthouse trophy because we were double handed, go figure.)

Examining the sailplan on Morgan’s Cloud, it doesn’t seem to me that there is much difference with the boat I’m considering. Perhaps the inner stay is a bit further forward. Do these pics give you any inclination of whether it is rigged properly as a cutter? Note the staysail lead on the side deck rather than further inboard.

Another one…

Yes, I don’t think the headstay position is a problem, but you are right the staysail track should probably move onto the cabin top to widen the slot to jib top. That said, without being on the boat and sailing her I can’t tell you for sure. As I say in the article, exact sheet positions are the job of a good sail designer who understands cutters. The alternative is, when you have the boat, set up an inhauler on the staysail and mess with it until you get it right, preferably with the sailmaker aboard.

The Cambria is a loverly hull form.

A few random thoughts from someone who has significantly changed the sailplan on a few boats. By the way, while I have no personal experience with them, the Cambria looks like a nice boat.

Not knowing if you have been through this sort of boat ownership before, one thing that stands out to me is that usually your idea of how you want to set up a boat before sailing it and how you find is actually best are very different. This is a strong argument for doing a season playing with the existing sails as long as they are safe and figuring out what you think works best for the boat and for you. The sailplan looks like it is proportioned to work well both as a cutter and sloop so you have some flexibility and may want to do one thing for coastal and another for offshore. Then I would make sure to buy the offshore voyaging set of sails a season before you head out so that you have time to work all the bugs out.

What is best is going to be very dependent on you. You mentioned that you like sailing upwind. Upwind in flat water with a boat that isn’t covered in gear is going to favor something like a blade jib and then maybe a code sail off the wind. Some people love the performance while others are too lazy and would just like a genoa. Location is also going to matter and I am not sure where you are. On the Chesapeake you will want to maximize sail area for much of the year whereas in San Francisco, the options of a yankee and staysail might be perfect if the boat is not super stiff. I think that cutters are great fun but you have to be someone who puts in the effort to make them sail well. I do get what your sailmaker is saying, there are quite a few cutters around us that never fly their staysail but to me the problem is that they have the wrong rig for their performance/effort/comfort point.

If you don’t have previous coastal cruising experience, visibility is a big deal. Deck sweeping genoas may be fast but I personally really dislike constantly running back and forth to look around them and find them downright dangerous in reduced visibility or with a lot of fishing gear to steer around. Cutters fill in most of the gap but without hurting visibility too much.

Thanks for a great fill, thanks. I 100% agree that the best thing is to sail the boat first. I should have said that.

Thanks Eric. I am 4 yeas into a total refit of a Tartan 37 and have cruised it extensively for three summers in New England and the Chesapeake. I’m selling that boat now rather than put another $30K into re-coring the deck, opting to spend that cash on the forever boat. Most of my sailing experience is with racing in various boats, dinghies, and windsurfers. I came into cruising only recently. I generally push the performance envelope pretty hard but I’m learning to throttle back some. I have learned how important visibility is in cruising with limited eyeballs, and if I decided on a genoa it would be higher cut like my current Tartan genoas. I appreciate the thoughtful response.

Hi John, thanks so far for the answered questions elsewhere in your books! As I am further detailing our inner forestay which now consist of fixed forestay, roller furling and running backstays I have another question regarding the size of the furling gear. Having a good look at some of the pictures where I can see the furling gear you used on MC it appears to me that it is about 1 size smaller then your head furler. Is this correct? And if so, were you ever concerned about its size in heavy weather? The inner forestay I currently plan is 8mm (the rest of the rig is 10mm) for which I am confident, but I still have the option to go for a similar furler as the head stay or downsize.

To clarify, the question is in relation to #9 above: a built in storm-jib. Btw all 3 sails will be made out of 9.45oz cloth.

Interesting question. The answer got long, so I have written a tip, look for it in the next few days.

Just published my thoughts on this: https://www.morganscloud.com/jhhtips/qa-sizing-a-staysail-roller-furler/

The Ultimate Guide to Sail Types and Rigs (with Pictures)

What's that sail for? Generally, I don't know. So I've come up with a system. I'll explain you everything there is to know about sails and rigs in this article.

What are the different types of sails? Most sailboats have one mainsail and one headsail. Typically, the mainsail is a fore-and-aft bermuda rig (triangular shaped). A jib or genoa is used for the headsail. Most sailors use additional sails for different conditions: the spinnaker (a common downwind sail), gennaker, code zero (for upwind use), and stormsail.

Each sail has its own use. Want to go downwind fast? Use a spinnaker. But you can't just raise any sail and go for it. It's important to understand when (and how) to use each sail. Your rigging also impacts what sails you can use.

On this page:

Different sail types, the sail plan of a bermuda sloop, mainsail designs, headsail options, specialty sails, complete overview of sail uses, mast configurations and rig types.

This article is part 1 of my series on sails and rig types. Part 2 is all about the different types of rigging. If you want to learn to identify every boat you see quickly, make sure to read it. It really explains the different sail plans and types of rigging clearly.

Guide to Understanding Sail Rig Types (with Pictures)

First I'll give you a quick and dirty overview of sails in this list below. Then, I'll walk you through the details of each sail type, and the sail plan, which is the godfather of sail type selection so to speak.

Click here if you just want to scroll through a bunch of pictures .

Here's a list of different models of sails: (Don't worry if you don't yet understand some of the words, I'll explain all of them in a bit)

• Jib - triangular staysail
• Genoa - large jib that overlaps the mainsail
• Spinnaker - large balloon-shaped downwind sail for light airs
• Gennaker - crossover between a Genoa and Spinnaker
• Code Zero or Screecher - upwind spinnaker
• Drifter or reacher - a large, powerful, hanked on genoa, but made from lightweight fabric
• Windseeker - tall, narrow, high-clewed, and lightweight jib
• Trysail - smaller front-and-aft mainsail for heavy weather
• Storm jib - small jib for heavy weather

I have a big table below that explains the sail types and uses in detail .

I know, I know ... this list is kind of messy, so to understand each sail, let's place them in a system.

The first important distinction between sail types is the placement . The mainsail is placed aft of the mast, which simply means behind. The headsail is in front of the mast.

Generally, we have three sorts of sails on our boat:

• Mainsail: The large sail behind the mast which is attached to the mast and boom
• Headsail: The small sail in front of the mast, attached to the mast and forestay (ie. jib or genoa)
• Specialty sails: Any special utility sails, like spinnakers - large, balloon-shaped sails for downwind use

The second important distinction we need to make is the functionality . Specialty sails (just a name I came up with) each have different functionalities and are used for very specific conditions. So they're not always up, but most sailors carry one or more of these sails.

They are mostly attached in front of the headsail, or used as a headsail replacement.

The specialty sails can be divided into three different categories:

• downwind sails - like a spinnaker
• light air or reacher sails - like a code zero
• storm sails

The parts of any sail

Whether large or small, each sail consists roughly of the same elements. For clarity's sake I've took an image of a sail from the world wide webs and added the different part names to it:

• Head: Top of the sail
• Tack: Lower front corner of the sail
• Foot: Bottom of the sail
• Luff: Forward edge of the sail
• Leech: Back edge of the sail
• Clew: Bottom back corner of the sail

So now we speak the same language, let's dive into the real nitty gritty.

Basic sail shapes

Roughly speaking, there are actually just two sail shapes, so that's easy enough. You get to choose from:

• square rigged sails
• fore-and-aft rigged sails

I would definitely recommend fore-and-aft rigged sails. Square shaped sails are pretty outdated. The fore-and-aft rig offers unbeatable maneuverability, so that's what most sailing yachts use nowadays.

Square sails were used on Viking longships and are good at sailing downwind. They run from side to side. However, they're pretty useless upwind.

A fore-and-aft sail runs from the front of the mast to the stern. Fore-and-aft literally means 'in front and behind'. Boats with fore-and-aft rigged sails are better at sailing upwind and maneuvering in general. This type of sail was first used on Arabic boats.

As a beginner sailor I confuse the type of sail with rigging all the time. But I should cut myself some slack, because the rigging and sails on a boat are very closely related. They are all part of the sail plan .

A sail plan is made up of:

• Mast configuration - refers to the number of masts and where they are placed
• Sail type - refers to the sail shape and functionality
• Rig type - refers to the way these sails are set up on your boat

There are dozens of sails and hundreds of possible configurations (or sail plans).

For example, depending on your mast configuration, you can have extra headsails (which then are called staysails).

The shape of the sails depends on the rigging, so they overlap a bit. To keep it simple I'll first go over the different sail types based on the most common rig. I'll go over the other rig types later in the article.

Bermuda Sloop: the most common rig

Most modern small and mid-sized sailboats have a Bermuda sloop configuration . The sloop is one-masted and has two sails, which are front-and-aft rigged. This type of rig is also called a Marconi Rig. The Bermuda rig uses a triangular sail, with just one side of the sail attached to the mast.

The mainsail is in use most of the time. It can be reefed down, making it smaller depending on the wind conditions. It can be reefed down completely, which is more common in heavy weather. (If you didn't know already: reefing is skipper terms for rolling or folding down a sail.)

In very strong winds (above 30 knots), most sailors only use the headsail or switch to a trysail.

The headsail powers your bow, the mainsail powers your stern (rear). By having two sails, you can steer by using only your sails (in theory - it requires experience). In any case, two sails gives you better handling than one, but is still easy to operate.

Let's get to the actual sails. The mainsail is attached behind the mast and to the boom, running to the stern. There are multiple designs, but they actually don't differ that much. So the following list is a bit boring. Feel free to skip it or quickly glance over it.

• Square Top racing mainsail - has a high performance profile thanks to the square top, optional reef points
• Racing mainsail - made for speed, optional reef points
• Cruising mainsail - low-maintenance, easy to use, made to last. Generally have one or multiple reef points.
• Full-Batten Cruising mainsail - cruising mainsail with better shape control. Eliminates flogging. Full-length battens means the sail is reinforced over the entire length. Generally have one or multiple reef points.
• High Roach mainsail - crossover between square top racing and cruising mainsail, used mostly on cats and multihulls. Generally have one or multiple reef points.
• Mast Furling mainsail - sails specially made to roll up inside the mast - very convenient but less control; of sail shape. Have no reef points
• Boom Furling mainsail - sails specially made to roll up inside the boom. Have no reef points.

The headsail is the front sail in a front-and-aft rig. The sail is fixed on a stay (rope, wire or rod) which runs forward to the deck or bowsprit. It's almost always triangular (Dutch fishermen are known to use rectangular headsail). A triangular headsail is also called a jib .

Headsails can be attached in two ways:

• using roller furlings - the sail rolls around the headstay
• hank on - fixed attachment

Types of jibs:

Typically a sloop carries a regular jib as its headsail. It can also use a genoa.

• A jib is a triangular staysail set in front of the mast. It's the same size as the fore-triangle.
• A genoa is a large jib that overlaps the mainsail.

What's the purpose of a jib sail? A jib is used to improve handling and to increase sail area on a sailboat. This helps to increase speed. The jib gives control over the bow (front) of the ship, making it easier to maneuver the ship. The mainsail gives control over the stern of the ship. The jib is the headsail (frontsail) on a front-and-aft rig.

The size of the jib is generally indicated by a number - J1, 2, 3, and so on. The number tells us the attachment point. The order of attachment points may differ per sailmaker, so sometimes J1 is the largest jib (on the longest stay) and sometimes it's the smallest (on the shortest stay). Typically the J1 jib is the largest - and the J3 jib the smallest.

Most jibs are roller furling jibs: this means they are attached to a stay and can be reefed down single-handedly. If you have a roller furling you can reef down the jib to all three positions and don't need to carry different sizes.

Originally called the 'overlapping jib', the leech of the genoa extends aft of the mast. This increases speed in light and moderate winds. A genoa is larger than the total size of the fore-triangle. How large exactly is indicated by a percentage.

• A number 1 genoa is typically 155% (it used to be 180%)
• A number 2 genoa is typically 125-140%

Genoas are typically made from 1.5US/oz polyester spinnaker cloth, or very light laminate.

This is where it gets pretty interesting. You can use all kinds of sails to increase speed, handling, and performance for different weather conditions.

Some rules of thumb:

• Large sails are typically good for downwind use, small sails are good for upwind use.
• Large sails are good for weak winds (light air), small sails are good for strong winds (storms).

Downwind sails

Thanks to the front-and-aft rig sailboats are easier to maneuver, but they catch less wind as well. Downwind sails are used to offset this by using a large sail surface, pulling a sailboat downwind. They can be hanked on when needed and are typically balloon shaped.

Here are the most common downwind sails:

• Big gennaker
• Small gennaker

A free-flying sail that fills up with air, giving it a balloon shape. Spinnakers are generally colorful, which is why they look like kites. This downwind sail has the largest sail area, and it's capable of moving a boat with very light wind. They are amazing to use on trade wind routes, where they can help you make quick progress.

Spinnakers require special rigging. You need a special pole and track on your mast. You attach the sail at three points: in the mast head using a halyard, on a pole, and on a sheet.

The spinnaker is symmetrical, meaning the luff is as long as its leech. It's designed for broad reaching.

Gennaker or cruising spinnaker

The Gennaker is a cross between the genoa and the spinnaker. It has less downwind performance than the spinnaker. It is a bit smaller, making it slower, but also easier to handle - while it remains very capable. The cruising spinnaker is designed for broad reaching.

The gennaker is a smaller, asymmetric spinnaker that's doesn't require a pole or track on the mast. Like the spinnaker, and unlike the genoa, the gennaker is set flying. Asymmetric means its luff is longer than its leech.

You can get big and small gennakers (roughly 75% and 50% the size of a true spinnaker).

Also called ...

• the cruising spinnaker
• cruising chute
• pole-less spinnaker
• SpinDrifter

... it's all the same sail.

Light air sails

There's a bit of overlap between the downwind sails and light air sails. Downwind sails can be used as light air sails, but not all light air sails can be used downwind.

Here are the most common light air sails:

• Spinnaker and gennaker

Drifter reacher

Code zero reacher.

A drifter (also called a reacher) is a lightweight, larger genoa for use in light winds. It's roughly 150-170% the size of a genoa. It's made from very lightweight laminated spinnaker fabric (1.5US/oz).

Thanks to the extra sail area the sail offers better downwind performance than a genoa. It's generally made from lightweight nylon. Thanks to it's genoa characteristics the sail is easier to use than a cruising spinnaker.

The code zero reacher is officially a type of spinnaker, but it looks a lot like a large genoa. And that's exactly what it is: a hybrid cross between the genoa and the asymmetrical spinnaker (gennaker). The code zero however is designed for close reaching, making it much flatter than the spinnaker. It's about twice the size of a non-overlapping jib.

A windseeker is a small, free-flying staysail for super light air. It's tall and thin. It's freestanding, so it's not attached to the headstay. The tack attaches to a deck pad-eye. Use your spinnakers' halyard to raise it and tension the luff.

It's made from nylon or polyester spinnaker cloth (0.75 to 1.5US/oz).

It's designed to guide light air onto the lee side of the main sail, ensuring a more even, smooth flow of air.

Stormsails are stronger than regular sails, and are designed to handle winds of over 45 knots. You carry them to spare the mainsail. Sails

A storm jib is a small triangular staysail for use in heavy weather. If you participate in offshore racing you need a mandatory orange storm jib. It's part of ISAF's requirements.

A trysail is a storm replacement for the mainsail. It's small, triangular, and it uses a permanently attached pennant. This allows it to be set above the gooseneck. It's recommended to have a separate track on your mast for it - you don't want to fiddle around when you actually really need it to be raised ... now.

Why Use Different Sails At All?

You could just get the largest furling genoa and use it on all positions. So why would you actually use different types of sails?

The main answer to that is efficiency . Some situations require other characteristics.

Having a deeply reefed genoa isn't as efficient as having a small J3. The reef creates too much draft in the sail, which increases heeling. A reefed down mainsail in strong winds also increases heeling. So having dedicated (storm) sails is probably a good thing, especially if you're planning more demanding passages or crossings.

But it's not just strong winds, but also light winds that can cause problems. Heavy sails will just flap around like laundry in very light air. So you need more lightweight fabrics to get you moving.

What Are Sails Made Of?

The most used materials for sails nowadays are:

• Dacron - woven polyester
• woven nylon
• laminated fabrics - increasingly popular

Sails used to be made of linen. As you can imagine, this is terrible material on open seas. Sails were rotting due to UV and saltwater. In the 19th century linen was replaced by cotton.

It was only in the 20th century that sails were made from synthetic fibers, which were much stronger and durable. Up until the 1980s most sails were made from Dacron. Nowadays, laminates using yellow aramids, Black Technora, carbon fiber and Spectra yarns are more and more used.

Laminates are as strong as Dacron, but a lot lighter - which matters with sails weighing up to 100 kg (220 pounds).

By the way: we think that Viking sails were made from wool and leather, which is quite impressive if you ask me.

In this section of the article I give you a quick and dirty summary of different sail plans or rig types which will help you to identify boats quickly. But if you want to really understand it clearly, I really recommend you read part 2 of this series, which is all about different rig types.

You can't simply count the number of masts to identify rig type But you can identify any rig type if you know what to look for. We've created an entire system for recognizing rig types. Let us walk you through it. Read all about sail rig types

As I've said earlier, there are two major rig types: square rigged and fore-and-aft. We can divide the fore-and-aft rigs into three groups:

• Bermuda rig (we have talked about this one the whole time) - has a three-sided mainsail
• Gaff rig - has a four-sided mainsail, the head of the mainsail is guided by a gaff
• Lateen rig - has a three-sided mainsail on a long yard

There are roughly four types of boats:

• one masted boats - sloop, cutter
• two masted boats - ketch, schooner, brig
• three masted - barque
• fully rigged or ship rigged - tall ship

Everything with four masts is called a (tall) ship. I think it's outside the scope of this article, but I have written a comprehensive guide to rigging. I'll leave the three and four-masted rigs for now. If you want to know more, I encourage you to read part 2 of this series.

One-masted rigs

Boats with one mast can have either one sail, two sails, or three or more sails.

The 3 most common one-masted rigs are:

• Cat - one mast, one sail
• Sloop - one mast, two sails
• Cutter - one mast, three or more sails

1. Gaff Cat

2. Gaff Sloop

Two-masted rigs

Two-masted boats can have an extra mast in front or behind the main mast. Behind (aft of) the main mast is called a mizzen mast . In front of the main mast is called a foremast .

The 5 most common two-masted rigs are:

• Lugger - two masts (mizzen), with lugsail (cross between gaff rig and lateen rig) on both masts
• Yawl - two masts (mizzen), fore-and-aft rigged on both masts. Main mast much taller than mizzen. Mizzen without mainsail.
• Ketch - two masts (mizzen), fore-and-aft rigged on both masts. Main mast with only slightly smaller mizzen. Mizzen has mainsail.
• Schooner - two masts (foremast), generally gaff rig on both masts. Main mast with only slightly smaller foremast. Sometimes build with three masts, up to seven in the age of sail.
• Brig - two masts (foremast), partially square-rigged. Main mast carries small lateen rigged sail.

4. Schooner

5. Brigantine

This article is part 1 of a series about sails and rig types If you want to read on and learn to identify any sail plans and rig type, we've found a series of questions that will help you do that quickly. Read all about recognizing rig types

Related Questions

What is the difference between a gennaker & spinnaker? Typically, a gennaker is smaller than a spinnaker. Unlike a spinnaker, a gennaker isn't symmetric. It's asymmetric like a genoa. It is however rigged like a spinnaker; it's not attached to the forestay (like a jib or a genoa). It's a downwind sail, and a cross between the genoa and the spinnaker (hence the name).

What is a Yankee sail? A Yankee sail is a jib with a high-cut clew of about 3' above the boom. A higher-clewed jib is good for reaching and is better in high waves, preventing the waves crash into the jibs foot. Yankee jibs are mostly used on traditional sailboats.

How much does a sail weigh? Sails weigh anywhere between 4.5-155 lbs (2-70 kg). The reason is that weight goes up exponentially with size. Small boats carry smaller sails (100 sq. ft.) made from thinner cloth (3.5 oz). Large racing yachts can carry sails of up to 400 sq. ft., made from heavy fabric (14 oz), totaling at 155 lbs (70 kg).

What's the difference between a headsail and a staysail? The headsail is the most forward of the staysails. A boat can only have one headsail, but it can have multiple staysails. Every staysail is attached to a forward running stay. However, not every staysail is located at the bow. A stay can run from the mizzen mast to the main mast as well.

What is a mizzenmast? A mizzenmast is the mast aft of the main mast (behind; at the stern) in a two or three-masted sailing rig. The mizzenmast is shorter than the main mast. It may carry a mainsail, for example with a ketch or lugger. It sometimes doesn't carry a mainsail, for example with a yawl, allowing it to be much shorter.

Special thanks to the following people for letting me use their quality photos: Bill Abbott - True Spinnaker with pole - CC BY-SA 2.0 lotsemann - Volvo Ocean Race Alvimedica and the Code Zero versus SCA and the J1 - CC BY-SA 2.0 Lisa Bat - US Naval Academy Trysail and Storm Jib dry fit - CC BY-SA 2.0 Mike Powell - White gaff cat - CC BY-SA 2.0 Anne Burgess - Lugger The Reaper at Scottish Traditional Boat Festival

Hi, I stumbled upon your page and couldn’t help but notice some mistakes in your description of spinnakers and gennakers. First of all, in the main photo on top of this page the small yacht is sailing a spinnaker, not a gennaker. If you look closely you can see the spinnaker pole standing on the mast, visible between the main and headsail. Further down, the discription of the picture with the two German dinghies is incorrect. They are sailing spinnakers, on a spinnaker pole. In the farthest boat, you can see a small piece of the pole. If needed I can give you the details on the difference between gennakers and spinnakers correctly?

Hi Shawn, I am living in Utrecht I have an old gulf 32 and I am sailing in merkmeer I find your articles very helpful Thanks

Thank you for helping me under stand all the sails there names and what there functions were and how to use them. I am planning to build a trimaran 30’ what would be the best sails to have I plan to be coastal sailing with it. Thank you

Hey Comrade!

Well done with your master piece blogging. Just a small feedback. “The jib gives control over the bow of the ship, making it easier to maneuver the ship. The mainsail gives control over the stern of the ship.” Can you please first tell the different part of a sail boat earlier and then talk about bow and stern later in the paragraph. A reader has no clue on the newly introduced terms. It helps to keep laser focused and not forget main concepts.

Shawn, I am currently reading How to sail around the World” by Hal Roth. Yes, I want to sail around the world. His book is truly grounded in real world experience but like a lot of very knowledgable people discussing their area of expertise, Hal uses a lot of terms that I probably should have known but didn’t, until now. I am now off to read your second article. Thank You for this very enlightening article on Sail types and their uses.

Shawn Buckles

HI CVB, that’s a cool plan. Thanks, I really love to hear that. I’m happy that it was helpful to you and I hope you are of to a great start for your new adventure!

Hi GOWTHAM, thanks for the tip, I sometimes forget I haven’t specified the new term. I’ve added it to the article.

Nice article and video; however, you’re mixing up the spinnaker and the gennaker.

A started out with a question. What distinguishes a brig from a schooner? Which in turn led to follow-up questions: I know there are Bermuda rigs and Latin rig, are there more? Which in turn led to further questions, and further, and further… This site answers them all. Wonderful work. Thank you.

Great post and video! One thing was I was surprised how little you mentioned the Ketch here and not at all in the video or chart, and your sample image is a large ship with many sails. Some may think Ketch’s are uncommon, old fashioned or only for large boats. Actually Ketch’s are quite common for cruisers and live-aboards, especially since they often result in a center cockpit layout which makes for a very nice aft stateroom inside. These are almost exclusively the boats we are looking at, so I was surprised you glossed over them.

Love the article and am finding it quite informative.

While I know it may seem obvious to 99% of your readers, I wish you had defined the terms “upwind” and “downwind.” I’m in the 1% that isn’t sure which one means “with the wind” (or in the direction the wind is blowing) and which one means “against the wind” (or opposite to the way the wind is blowing.)

paul adriaan kleimeer

like in all fields of syntax and terminology the terms are colouual meaning local and then spead as the technology spread so an history lesson gives a floral bouque its colour and in the case of notical terms span culture and history adds an detail that bring reverence to the study simply more memorable.

Hi, I have a small yacht sail which was left in my lock-up over 30 years ago I basically know nothing about sails and wondered if you could spread any light as to the make and use of said sail. Someone said it was probably originally from a Wayfayer wooden yacht but wasn’t sure. Any info would be must appreciated and indeed if would be of any use to your followers? I can provide pics but don’t see how to include them at present

kind regards

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Ever wondered what type of sailboat you're looking at? Identifying sailboats isn't hard, you just have to know what to look for. In this article, I'll help you.

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Cutter-Rigged Sailboat Definition: Everything You Need to Know

by Emma Sullivan | Aug 12, 2023 | Sailboat Lifestyle

Short answer cutter-rigged sailboat definition:

A cutter-rigged sailboat is a type of sailing vessel characterized by its rigging configuration, which includes a single mast set further aft and multiple headsails. This design offers versatility in various wind conditions, providing better control and balance while sailing.

1) What is a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat? A Comprehensive Definition

A cutter-rigged sailboat is a versatile and elegant type of sailing vessel that offers sailors a range of benefits and capabilities. With its distinctive rigging setup, the cutter sailboat has long been favored by sailors for its maneuverability, stability, and ability to handle different wind conditions. In this comprehensive definition, we will delve into the intricacies of the cutter rig and explore why it remains a popular choice among sailing enthusiasts.

At its core, a cutter-rigged sailboat features a specific arrangement of sails and mast configuration. Unlike other types of rigs like sloop or ketch, a cutter possesses two headsails – both the jib and staysail. The jib is usually larger and set forward to catch the main flow of wind, while the staysail sits between the foremost mast (known as the foremast) and the mainmast. This arrangement provides maximum control over different wind speeds and directions. While some smaller cutters may have only one mast, larger vessels often boast multiple masts, creating an impressive silhouette on the water.

One of the main advantages of a cutter rig is its versatility in handling various weather conditions . The combination of a large jib upfront with its increased surface area allows for heightened propulsion when sailing downwind or with favorable winds behind you. On the other hand, when facing challenging upwind conditions where close-hauled sailing is required, a smaller but easily controllable staysail comes into play. This dual headsail setup gives sailors better options for optimal sail configurations depending on wind angles – an invaluable feature that makes cutters ideal for long-distance cruising or racing.

Additionally, stability plays a crucial role in determining why many sailors opt for cutter-rigged sailboats . With two headsails set in front of your boat ‘s centerline but balanced proportionately around it, there’s less chance of being overpowered by strong gusts or unsteady winds compared to single-headsail rigs like sloops. This inherent stability allows for better control and reduces the risk of a sudden broach, which can be particularly crucial when sailing in harsh or unpredictable conditions.

Not only does the cutter setup provide superior handling, but it also enhances safety on the water. Since the staysail can easily be brought down or adjusted independently from the larger jib, sail changes are more manageable and less physically demanding for crew members. This flexibility is particularly vital during challenging weather conditions, as it minimizes time spent on deck in potentially dangerous situations .

Beyond its functional advantages, there’s an undeniable aesthetic appeal to cutter-rigged sailboats that captivates sailors and admirers alike. The imposing presence of multiple masts adorned with gracefully billowing sails creates an aura of classic beauty that pays homage to traditional sailing vessels of old. Whether cruising leisurely along coastlines or partaking in thrilling racing competitions, a cutter’s stylish design ensures you’ll turn heads wherever you go.

In conclusion, a cutter-rigged sailboat is a comprehensive embodiment of functionality, style, and adaptability on the water. With its distinct two-headsail setup providing excellent control across varying wind conditions, it stands out as an ideal choice for serious sailors seeking an enhanced sailing experience. From its versatility to stability and safety benefits – not to mention its timeless elegance – no wonder cutters remain cherished by seafaring enthusiasts worldwide who appreciate both tradition and innovation in their voyages.

2) Understanding the Cutter-Rigged Sailboat: Definition and Characteristics

Are you a sailing enthusiast looking to explore different types of sailboats? If so, then understanding the cutter-rigged sailboat is essential. This unique and versatile vessel has its own distinct features and characteristics that set it apart from other types of sailboats . So, let’s dive into the world of the cutter-rigged sailboat , exploring its definition and noteworthy qualities.

First, let’s start with the definition. A cutter rig is a specific type of sailing rig configuration typically found on smaller to medium-sized boats. Unlike other rigs such as sloops or ketches, which have only one headsail (the foresail), the cutter rig features multiple headsails.

The most prominent feature of a cutter rig is its dual headsails – a jib and staysail. The jib is the larger headsail located forward of the mast, while the staysail is positioned between the mast and forestay (the primary vertical support for the mast).

Why two headsails? Well, this setup provides incredible versatility and adaptability in various wind conditions. By utilizing both sails in combination or individually, a sailor can easily adjust their sail plan to maximize performance based on wind strength and direction.

Let’s talk about some remarkable characteristics that make the cutter rig stand out:

1. Upwind Performance: The presence of two headsails provides increased control when sailing upwind, allowing for better pointing ability into the wind. The staysail helps balance out the forces acting on the boat, reducing weather helm (the tendency of a boat to turn towards the wind) compared to other rig configurations .

2. Offshore Capabilities: Cutter rigs are renowned for their seaworthiness. With their ability to handle heavy weather conditions offshore, many serious cruisers prefer this rig type for long-distance voyages or bluewater sailing adventures .

3. Redundancy and Safety: Having two separate headsails not only enhances performance but also acts as a backup in case of damage or failure. If one headsail gets damaged, the sailor can simply drop it and continue sailing with the remaining sail. This redundancy is particularly useful during extended cruising or when sailing far from shore.

4. Versatility in Sailing Conditions: Cutter-rigged sailboats excel in a wide range of wind conditions, from light airs to strong winds. The ability to switch between different combinations of sails allows sailors to optimize their performance regardless of the prevailing weather conditions on their journey.

5. Ease of Handling: Despite having multiple sails, cutter rigs can be easily managed by a small crew or even single-handedly. The sail area is distributed across the two headsails, making them more manageable compared to larger single headsails found on sloops or ketches.

So there you have it – an introduction to understanding the cutter-rigged sailboat and its defining characteristics. From increased upwind performance to offshore capabilities and versatility in various weather conditions, this rig configuration offers a unique sailing experience that avid sailors find both thrilling and practical.

If you’re looking for a vessel that combines adaptability, safety, and ease of handling without compromising performance, then exploring the world of cutter-rigged sailboats might be your next exciting venture!

3) Step-by-Step Guide to Defining a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat

Welcome to our step-by-step guide on defining a cutter-rigged sailboat. If you’re new to the world of sailing or simply curious about this particular rigging style, you’ve come to the right place. Whether you’re envisioning sweeping journeys across the open seas or peaceful cruises along the coastline, understanding the intricacies of a cutter-rigged sailboat will equip you well for your adventures.

Step 1: Understanding the Basics Before delving into the specifics, let’s start with some fundamental knowledge. A cutter rig consists of multiple sails and is one of the most versatile options for sailboats . It typically features three sails: a foresail (the headsail), a mainsail, and a smaller third sail known as a staysail.

Step 2: Exploration and Considerations Now that we have grasped the general concept, it’s time to dive deeper into what makes a cutter rig unique. One key characteristic lies in its ability to handle various wind conditions exceptionally well due to its versatility. This adaptability ensures safety and efficiency even when facing unpredictable weather patterns during your sailing journeys.

Moreover, consider how different materials can affect performance while designing your ideal cutter-rigged boat. Sails made from modern materials such as polyester or nylon are durable and lightweight, enabling more efficient manipulation of wind power.

Step 3: Factors Influencing Cutter Rig Choices Defining your sailboat requires weighing several factors impacting your desired experience . First and foremost, think about your preferred cruising grounds – whether it’s serene lakes or challenging ocean waters – as this significantly influences sail arrangement decisions.

Furthermore, consider elements like mast height and placement; these variables directly impact how effectively the boat harnesses wind power for optimum performance. An experienced naval architect or yacht designer will be an invaluable resource when making these choices.

Step 4: Essential Equipment Next up is selecting essential equipment that complements your intended sailing lifestyle. When defining a cutter rig, it is crucial to invest in robust and reliable hardware to guarantee smooth sailing . Pay close attention to components such as winches, blocks, and furling systems, which all contribute to ease of handling and overall safety.

Step 5: Expert Advice Consulting with seasoned sailors or professionals within the sailing community can significantly enhance your understanding and decision-making process. Engaging in forums or seeking advice from experienced yacht brokers can provide valuable insights into different cutter rigs available on the market today.

This additional expertise ensures that you choose a cutter-rigged sailboat tailored specifically to your needs and desires while balancing practicality and performance.

Step 6: Balance Between Style and Functionality Ensuring your sailboat reflects your personal aesthetic preferences is also an essential aspect of defining a cutter rig . From sleek lines to elegant finishes, embrace the opportunity to infuse your unique style into the boat’s design without compromising its functionality.

Step 7: Maintenance and Upkeep Lastly, once you’ve defined your dream cutter-rigged sailboat , it’s important to consider maintenance requirements. Regular cleaning, inspection of equipment for wear and tear, as well as staying up-to-date with technological advancements will guarantee longevity and reliability throughout your sailing adventures .

Whether it’s chasing sunsets or conquering challenging waters, following this step-by-step guide will assist you in defining a cutter-rigged sailboat that fulfills all your nautical aspirations. With careful consideration of each component alongside expert input, you’ll be primed for unforgettable voyages while captivating fellow sailors with both the elegance and efficiency of your chosen rigging style.

4) Frequently Asked Questions about the Definition of a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat

Frequently Asked Questions about the Definition of a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat

When it comes to sailboats, there are numerous rigging options available, each with its own unique set of characteristics. One such design that has captivated the sailing community for generations is the cutter rig . Known for its versatility and performance capabilities, cutter-rigged sailboats have become a popular choice among experienced sailors. If you’re curious to learn more about this type of sailboat rig, we’ve compiled some frequently asked questions to demystify the definition of a cutter-rigged sailboat.

Q: What exactly is a cutter-rigged sailboat? A: A cutter rig refers to a specific arrangement of sails on a boat , consisting of two or more headsails and a mainsail. Unlike other rig configurations like sloops or ketches, where only one headsail is present in front of the mast, cutters feature multiple headsails set on separate forestays. The most common setup includes a staysail forward of the mast and a larger headsail (typically referred to as the genoa) on the foretriangle.

Q: Why would someone choose a cutter rig over other rig types ? A: One significant advantage of the cutter rig lies in its versatility and adaptability to various weather conditions . With two or more headsails onboard, sailors have greater control over their boat ‘s power and balance. The option to reef or furl both headsails independently allows for efficient sail area reduction during high winds while maintaining excellent maneuverability when under power alone. This makes cutters particularly appealing for long-distance cruising or offshore passages.

Q: Are there any disadvantages to choosing a cutter rig? A: Like any design choice, there are trade-offs associated with opting for a cutter-rigged sailboat. While offering enhanced flexibility compared to other rigs, cutters require additional hardware such as multiple forestays and halyards which may increase maintenance requirements. Additionally, the complex sail plan can require more crew effort and expertise to handle effectively, especially during maneuvers and sail changes. However, with proper training and experience, these challenges can be overcome.

Q: Can a cutter-rigged sailboat perform well in racing? A: While cutter rigs are not commonly found on the race circuit as they once were, that doesn’t mean they lack performance capabilities. Due to their ability to carry multiple headsails of varying sizes, cutters excel in heavy weather conditions where wind strength is typically higher. In races that encompass offshore or longer passages, cutters can often showcase their advantage over more limited-rigged vessels like sloops or Bermuda rigs.

Q: Are there any famous examples of cutter-rigged sailboats ? A: Yes! Some iconic examples of cutter-rigged sailboats include the historic Joshua Slocum’s Spray, which he sailed solo around the world in the late 19th century, and Eric Tabarly’s splendid Pen Duick series racing yachts. These vessels demonstrated the capabilities and enduring appeal of this rig type .

In conclusion, a cutter rig offers sailors an adaptable and versatile solution for their sailing needs. With its ability to handle various weather conditions while maintaining maneuverability and control under power alone, it’s no wonder why this rig configuration has stood the test of time. Although it requires some additional maintenance considerations and sailing proficiency compared to other options such as sloops or ketches, those who value performance and flexibility will find a cutter-rigged sailboat a worthy choice for both cruising adventures and competitive racing endeavors.

5) Exploring the Key Features of a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat: A Detailed Definition

In the world of sailing, there are a plethora of sailboat designs and rigging setups to choose from. Each configuration offers unique advantages and characteristics that cater to different sailing styles and conditions. One popular choice amongst avid sailors is the cutter-rigged sailboat.

What exactly is a cutter-rigged sailboat , you may ask? Well, let’s delve into this fascinating topic and explore the key features that make this rigging setup stand out.

At its core, a cutter-rigged sailboat is defined by its multiple headsails and specific mast placement. Unlike traditional sloop-rigged sailboats with just one headsail (the jib), cutters carry two headsails – the jib on the forestay and a smaller staysail on an inner stay called the second forestay. This additional headsail provides enhanced maneuverability, especially in heavier wind conditions or when sailing close to the wind.

The positioning of these sails allows for better balance and control. The jib acts as the primary driving force while the smaller staysail helps fine-tune and adjust sail trim for optimal performance in varying wind speeds. This configuration gives sailors greater flexibility and control over their vessel, making it easier to adapt to changing weather conditions or maneuver through tight spaces like crowded harbors or narrow channels.

One major advantage of a cutter rig is its versatility in handling different points of sail . Whether you’re beating upwind, reaching across open waters, or running downwind with strong winds at your back, a well-designed cutter rig can excel in all these scenarios. The ability to set various combinations of sails enables sailors to maximize their boat’s aerodynamic efficiency regardless of which way the wind blows.

In addition to its superb adaptability on different points of sail , another standout feature of a cutter rig is its reliability in heavy weather conditions. With two separate headsails instead of relying solely on one large genoa like many sloop rigs, a cutter rig offers increased sail area options without sacrificing safety. By reefing down and using the smaller staysail as the primary driving force, sailors can maintain control even in strong winds, reducing the risk of overpowering the boat.

Moreover, the presence of two forestays not only reinforces mast stability but also opens up possibilities for adding additional headsails or storm sails if needed. This further enhances a cutter-rigged sailboat’s versatility and adaptability to different sailing conditions, offering peace of mind to sailors heading out into more challenging waters.

It’s important to keep in mind that while cutter rigs come with numerous advantages, they may require slightly more effort and skill to manage compared to simpler rigging setups. The need for multiple sheets and halyards means more lines cluttering the deck, potentially leading to increased complexity when setting up or adjusting sails . However, with practice and experience, managing a cutter rig becomes second nature.

In conclusion, exploring the key features of a cutter-rigged sailboat reveals a versatile and reliable sailing configuration that appeals to seasoned sailors seeking enhanced maneuverability and adaptability on various points of sail. With its unique combination of two headsails and specific mast placement, this rigging setup offers both performance and safety in a wide range of conditions. So if you’re considering upgrading your current sloop rig or looking for a new sailboat altogether, don’t overlook the allure of a well-designed cutter rig – it just might be the perfect choice for your next sailing adventure!

6) Expert Insights: How to Define and Identify a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat

Title: Expert Insights: Mastering the Art of Defining and Identifying Cutter-Rigged Sailboats

Introduction: Ahoy, sailing enthusiasts ! Welcome to another exciting installment of our Expert Insights series. Today, we embark on a voyage delving into the intricacies of defining and identifying cutter-rigged sailboats. Whether you are a seasoned sailor or an aspiring seafarer, this comprehensive guide will equip you with the knowledge necessary to navigate the dazzling world of cutter rigs. So hoist your sails, batten down the hatches, and let’s set course for enlightenment!

What is a Cutter-Rigged Sailboat? Imagine an elegant vessel gracefully slicing through the water; that’s a cutter-rigged sailboat in all its glory. A cutter rig is characterized by having multiple foresails—a mainsail located closest to the mast, supplemented by two foresails mounted ahead called the jib and staysail. This configuration differentiates it from sloop rigs, where only one headsail (the jib) embellishes the mast.

1) The Power Behind Cutter Rigs: The secret to their popularity lies in versatility and performance. Cutter-rigged sailboats excel at various points of sail due to their flexible sail plan. While close-hauled (sailing as close to wind direction as possible), you can harness immense power by using both foresails simultaneously—balancing speed and maneuverability.

2) Benefits Beyond Mighty Winds: Cutter rigs not only capture more wind but also distribute it efficiently across multiple sails—enabling enhanced control during gusty conditions. These additional foresails provide options when experiencing changes in weather or sea states while cruising offshore or navigating congested harbors.

3) Identify with Ease: Distinguishing a cutter rig at first glance may seem perplexing, especially if you’re new to sailing terminology . However, one crucial telltale sign is evident—the presence of two headsails. The jib, commonly the largest fore-and-aft sail, unfurls ahead of the mast while the staysail—often smaller—is typically set on a forestay between the bow and mast.

4) Rigging Setup: Cutter-rigged sailboats possess a unique rigging setup to accommodate multiple foresails harmoniously. In addition to the mainmast, they typically feature an inner forestay reaching from the masthead to a point near or on the deck. This inner stay provides support for setting and controlling the staysail separately from the larger jib.

5) Sail Controls & Tactics: Understanding how to effectively control your cutter rig is key to mastering its potential. Utilize various lines and winches to haul in or release each sail independently, allowing for precise adjustments depending on wind conditions. For optimal performance, consider employing windward sheeting angles, fine-tuning sail twist, and applying proper reefing techniques when necessary.

Conclusion: Congratulations! You’ve successfully navigated through our expert insights on defining and identifying cutter-rigged sailboats with finesse. Armed with this newfound knowledge, you can confidently embark on your next sailing adventure or engage in enthusiastic conversations with fellow sailors about their awe-inspiring rigs . Remember, cutter rigs offer a combination of power, versatility, and charm that captivates both spectators and seasoned mariners alike. Fair winds and smooth seas await as you join the ranks of those who harness the magic of these remarkable vessels!

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The Cutter Sailplan

Thoughts about Sailplans and why I like Cutters for cruising

Most of my sailplans are moderate aspect, with multiple reefs, straight leach mains without battens so you can easily reef without the need to turn the bow into the wind, self-tending headsails; heavily and simply rigged. Many of my designs, even larger ones like DRAGONFLY 64, are planned out to be able to be single handed, which makes then ideal for short handed cruising.Don’t be scared by the bowsprits. As contemporary racers have re-discovered, a ‘sprit is a cheap way to carry extra sail, and adds a bit of class to almost any boat. I have a system of rigging the headstay on a tackle so you never need to go out on it if you don’t want to. Instead, the stay and sail comes to you! Rig types come and go in fashion and the fact is that none are better than the other. They all are great in some situations but poor in others and should, like all rest of the boat, boil down to personal preference or fantasy fulfillment. In the 1970’s there was an old boy who floated around Seattle’s Lake Union in a 14′ Brigantine. Practical, well, no, but what fun! That’s what it’s all about, remember?

Many people choose a cutter as a cruising rig because it is the most “practical.” A cutter rig is the cheapest to erect, he easiest to securely stay, and when designed with a moderate aspect ratio, a self-tending boomed staysail, and a jib, a cutter is the handiest and probably most efficient in more different situations than the other rigs. But pick what YOU want, and most of these designs can have a different rig drawn in if you want me to. Being practical isn’t everything and my very favorite rig to look at is a properly proportioned schooner. Schooners aren’t popular today. Most current designers only think about pointing and the schooner rig points the worst of any “fore and aft” rig. On the other side, it’s the most efficient OFF the wind and the old pilot schooner rig with its overlapping foresail is so powerful off the wind that it was banned from ocean racing. Have you ever noticed that all of today’s “performance boats” carry good sized engines? You put an engine in a schooner too, you know, and nothing points as high as the “iron jib!”

But the big problem with small schooners is that the makes the main harder to securely brace than a cutter or ketch, and the fore will usually be in the way of a bunk. But if you like the look, and there is nothing prettier than a schooner, all sails drawing, then go for it. You only live once. I offer plans for schooners as small as 16’.

Now then. The illustration following this rambling shows why I like the cutter rig for short handed cruising. You’ll note how easy it is to reef down in SMALL increments, keeping you in control. I started doing this after I almost lost a boat in Mexico. I took the sailmaker’s advice and had just two widely spaced reefs. Well, I wasn’t paying enough attention and in a blow found myself on that proverbial “lee shore.” With 1 reef in I had to much sail up, and with the deep 2nd reef I didn’t have enough sail to power through the waves. I didn’t have an engine (no more of that silliness!). Well, my next boat hadLOTS of reefs, and every sailplan I’ve done since has them too.Many people think it’s silly, but, I learned the value of it….

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Bristol Channel Cutter 28: Circumnavigator’s Choice

Chase your blue water dreams in this tried-and-true classic.

INTRODUCTION

Like many sailors, Bill and Cathy Norrie had dreams of sailing the warm waters of the southern oceans, particularly when winter snows beat against their prairie home. They made those dreams come true, purchasing Terrwyn , a Pacific Seacraft 37, and circumnavigating the world over a 5-year period. Bill took a leave of absence from his position as an anesthesiologist in Calgary, Alberta, and they flew off to wherever they had last left Terrwyn .

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Herreshoff Mobjack: A Family’s Love Affair with a Traditional Ketch

I cannot access the rest of the BCC article! Help!

I also cannot access BC28 article.

If you’re going to circumnavigate the world in one year, you’re putting yourself at high risk to be crossing an ocean when a tropical storm could develop. Not only that but you’re not going to see much or meet many people. To each his/her own.

Still can’t access the BCC28 article. Very frustrating!

Nice description of a classic. In the Nomenclature Department, perhaps the boom rests on a gallows frame, not a boomkin?

Love the classics. I have a Southern Cross 31 and can attest to their design.

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Sailing Pellew, the biggest Falmouth pilot cutter in 150 years

• August 3, 2021

Pellew is the largest Falmouth pilot cutter launched in Britain for more than 150 years, but represents something even greater, as James Stewart discovers

The upper reaches of the River Truro are not an obvious source of sailing innovation. No foiling cats fly over its shallows as at nearby Carrick Roads. The high-tech superyachts of Falmouth’s Pendennis yard are unlikely to appear anytime soon. Yet it’s here, among light-industrial units and auto-mechanics playing Radio 2, between a metal scrapyard and gas storage tanks, that one of the most interesting recent launches in British sailing has emerged, a Falmouth pilot cutter named Pellew .

In February 2020 the 68ft hull of the Pellew was lowered into the river from the Rhoda Mary Shipyard. When I visit a year on from that momentous day – the culmination of over four years’ work and goodness knows how many more planning – the frame of a similar 19th-century cutter stands on the hard mid-restoration.

“She’ll cost her owner a million quid to restore,” Luke Powell says. “But there’s no logic to wooden boats. Building one is just cavalier and mad, a romantic idea that it’s something worth doing.”

Grasp that and you’re halfway to understanding why Powell built Pellew , the largest Falmouth pilot cutter launched in Britain for more than 150 years. With 2020 lost, she begins her maiden charter season this summer.

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Perhaps only Powell would have had the nerve for such a project. Through his company Working Sail, managed by his wife Joanna, he has not only designed and built eight Scilly pilot cutters since 1993, but has also helped rehabilitate a genre of seakindly working craft that had been left to rot following the arrival of glassfibre. His largest previous cutter was Agnes , a pretty 46-footer currently sailing charters.

Falmouth cutters each carried eight pilots, but could be double-handed on their return to port. Photo: Nic Compton

Workhorse of the seas: The pilot cutter

In their day, Falmouth pilot cutters upped the ante. Larger and faster than their rival boats of the Scilly fleet, they evolved into cracking coastal workboats. Tough enough to look after crews as they bludgeoned into heavy oceanic swells west of the Scilly Isles yet easily driven in light airs; and able to race to windward to meet inbound ships yet manageable short-handed by just two crew.

Imagine a Land Rover of the late-1800s and you’re close. An obvious choice, then, when Powell looked to scale up.

For all that, Pellew represents a game-changer. She is a third longer than Agnes , with three times the displacement at 74 tonnes. Her 14in keel, frames and scantlings are of Lincolnshire oak fastened in bronze. A 9-tonne external lead keel supplements 14 tonnes of internal ballast (a neat trick that boosts internal volume).

North Sea Sails in Tollesbury, Essex, produced her vast 3,500ft2 of canvas flown over five sails. The 60ft spars are of Devonian Douglas fir – it took the driver of their low-loader two days to navigate a route to Truro.

Without a surviving Falmouth pilot cutter as a template for his replica, Powell worked from a 1:12 half-model plus contemporary photos of an 1855 boat called the Vincent that worked out of St Mawes (the name is from Admiral Edward Pellew, the son of a St Mawes packet-ship captain who became a hero of the Napoleonic wars, noted for his skill and humane treatment of prisoners). And despite her larger size, Powell produced her lines as he always did – on paper.

While eschewing CAD design sounds almost wilfully traditional, it’s Powell’s secret to fine-tuning a design. He explains: “You get more deeply involved in it [on paper] – you see the faults, the kinks in the line whereas on a computer it always looks good. You can’t look into the depths of a design if it’s too easy to make.”

Initial drawings usually take him a month. “Then I’ll leave it for a month to see it with fresh eyes. It’s absolutely like painting.”

Like painting, Powell believes that, certain parameters aside, 98% of good design comes down to aesthetics. “There’s no point building a boat that is not pretty. You have to fall in love with it.” Most of us can relate to that.

Brute force is all that’s needed to haul in the jib sheet, provided here by Sam Coltman (left) and Luke Powell. Photo: Nic Compton

There’s no logic to the allure of wooden boats. Or at least none beyond their elegant lines, perhaps a second sense that on such craft form follows function. One look at those old pilot cutters and you feel that there is a boat to keep you safe in a blow.

As Yachting World’s Tom Cunliffe puts it in the forward to Powell’s terrific book Working Sail : ‘Luke Powell’s boats stand out in any seascape as the loveliest of all. His eye is extraordinary, but it never compromises the critical factor of how the boat swims on the water.’

A quiet radical

Coming aboard Pellew in Falmouth’s Penryn river, although she’s almost from-the-wrapper new, her spars and blocks still as shiny as conkers, she appears timeless.

Her off-black hull has a workmanlike heft to make the surrounding fibreglass yachts look like yoghurt pots, swooping rakishly from overhang to 23ft bowsprit. The only concession to modernity on deck is a doghouse over the main companionway to shelter charter crew.

Below decks, however, the old pilots would splutter into their pipes. Aft of a fo’c’sle with abundant stowage and a pipecot is a guest cabin with eight bunks stacked four a side, plus a spacious heads with a shower. A snug three-berth crew quarters with a separate heads and nav area are aft of the companionway.

Crew Kelda Smith (left) and Jess Clay tension a halyard. Photo: Nic Compton

Taking advantage of the full 18ft beam at the centre is a surprisingly modern living space. To starboard is a longitudinal galley with an electric hob and oven, and (what luxury!) a dishwasher.

To port is a pilot berth and heads, plus a dining table that seats 12 – the social heart of the boat which seems purpose-designed for yarning.

Powell lights up as we clamber below. “I love being aboard,” he says with a grin. “This feels like home. It’s the boat that I always should’ve built.”

Powell is one of life’s enthusiasts: garrulous, as romantic as he is practical when it comes to wooden boats, almost boyishly enthusiastic. He’s also as quietly radical as you’d hope of a man who, aged nine, sailed to Greece with artist parents on a 40ft fishing boat; Leonard Cohen became a family friend during their stay in Hydra.

Powell came back to England after a decade to learn his trade restoring Thames barges in Faversham, Kent. Aged 21 he returned to Greece, where a near-derelict pilot cutter caught his eye.

By then a jobbing nautical artist, he produced 50 paintings for her owner in lieu of the £3,000 price tag. It was while sailing in Greece on that boat, surrounded by one of the last wooden working fleets in Europe, that Powell had an epiphany.

“A long continuity of design and boatbuilding just stops in our time. I thought, ‘Is no one going to do something to keep this alive? Are we just going to walk away from hundreds of years of evolution?’” The upshot was Working Sail .

While romance went halfway to understanding the genesis of Pellew , the rest comes down to legacy. In the heyday of pilot cutters, before boat design became the preserve of naval architects with letters after their names, any backwater boatbuilder could’ve knocked you up a respectable wooden boat. It was just part of the trade, a knowledge passed down and refined over generations, founded on designs that had proven themselves on the water.

With a twinkle Powell says he is in “the peasant boatbuilding line”. He tells me of a letter he received from an established naval architect after launching Working Sail : “He wrote: ‘How dare you design boats! We have been educated to do this.’ When you think about it, there are a million different shapes to boats and they all work. I learned like the old builders did, by trial and error.”

So, he insists that Working Sail is nothing special. “We’re just the last people doing this.”

All of Powell’s boats are decorated with carvings, such as plant motifs around the mooring chocks and Pellew’s star at the end of the bowsprit. Photo: Nic Compton

Then Powell’s project got really interesting. After the demise of a project to restore a Cornish merchant schooner for want of funds, a friend and keen barge-sailor, Brian Paine, offered Powell a deal. He would donate £900,000 from the sale of his independent college in Rochester so that Working Sail could build a boat from scratch. (The total cost of Pellew was £1.2m.) There was just one condition – young trainees had to work on the build.

The decision was a no-brainer. “Everything dies if you don’t share the knowledge,” says Powell. “ Pellew is about keeping those old skills alive.”

Five young shipwrights in their early 20s were hired to work alongside the experienced three-strong build team. Sam Coltman, 26, was lured from Pendennis to produce the metal fittings.

Everyone at the time realised Pellew was something special, he tells me as we prepare to sail, loosening the heavy mainsail, shackling halyards to the staysail and jib. These boats matter, he says: “Everything is different about a wooden boat: the movement, the creaks. They feel alive.”

Reassuring solidity

Powell fires up the 125hp John Deere engine deep within Pellew ’s guts. The propeller shaft was set almost a metre off-centre to port. A good aesthetic call, but it gave Powell the jitters on his first trial.

“I wasn’t sure beforehand whether we would make it around the first bend in the river [because the shaft was offset] but she performed perfectly. She feels big under power but as soon as the sails go up she’s totally manageable.”

We hoist the main on one of the two not-strictly-authentic hydraulic capstan winches. “Cheating really,” Powell says, but they are there as a concession for a guest crew who will be largely novices.

“We don’t have the same skill set as those sailors of the old days. There’s no point in making her so authentic she’ll be dangerous.” He anticipates the winches will come in handy for gybes in a blow.

Pellew is embarking on a first charter season, cruising Cornwall and Scotland. Photo: Nic Compton

No chance of that for us coming out of Falmouth harbour. All sails flying – including the topsail for the first time – we make a respectable three knots towards the St Anthony Head lighthouse in a Force 3.

A mile offshore the wind fills to a southerly Force 5, tearing rags of foam from the waves. Pellew squares her shoulders and leans into the blue-black seas as the numbers climb on the log: 6 knots, 7.1, 7.5, 8 knots. “Hey! We’re really going!” Powell yells at the tiller. In a Force 7 she’ll “do 10 knots, easy”.

The topsail and flying jib come down as the topmast begins to flex. The gaff cutter was the ultimate rig of its era: flexible, relatively easy to manage, able to pivot a boat easily around its mast and drive it to windward. The perfect rig for pilot boats, in other words.

We make around 60° off the wind, perhaps a pinch less, racing towards the horizon like the pilots of old, our wake foaming behind like a steadily unfastening zip. Pellew shrugs off the building seas with an easy motion that engenders confidence. It seems a huge pity when we have to turn back.

No museum pieces

Not everyone agrees with Powell’s approach. Some classics societies have argued that replicas devalue the original boats; that the focus should be on preservation not recreation. Back on land he is scathing: “They’d rather there was one boat left that was unique so they could sit around it and polish it.”

Boats are machines, he says. “They have to function. The sea is no kinder to a boat that’s 200 years old. When they take something like the Cutty Sark and become anal about saving the wood it’s pointless. The actual boat is the shape and its fitness for sea, not the material.

The comfortable guest accommodation on board. Photo: Nic Compton

“A brand new Cutty Sark would have been much more valuable than that shocking relic now stuck above a glass cafe.”

So, yachts are not just made to go sailing they are – I’d recommend you sit down now, classics owners – also made to be ‘disposable’. That’s quite the statement from someone who has just spent five years building one.

“Boats should be mortal, not so precious you’re frightened of breaking them,” he explains. “If you break one make another! You can do that quite happily if the tradition is still alive, and the only way to ensure it’s still alive is to build not repair, which means new boats and new boatbuilders, which bring in more people, more energy. Get enough and the whole scene snowballs.”

I had assumed Pellew was another replica, albeit a large one. Yet she is in fact one of the most interesting launches in Britain in years. Combine her revival of the Falmouth pilot cutter, her blooding of a new generation of shipwrights and Powell’s refreshing take on a sector that can be somewhat Luddite and Pellew appears to be something more.

I don’t want to sound overly messianic here, but it offers a manifesto for a living classics industry, one based on more than nostalgia, and which should thrill all sailors. Better still, she is a stonking boat.

The long-term goal is to establish Rhoda Mary Shipyard as a hub for traditional boatbuilding: more apprentices (on my visit I met an evangelical 20-year-old who had never set foot in a marina before his traineeship let alone a traditional shipyard), perhaps a forge and a sailmaker. The hope is that Pellew will be the first of the big stuff.

But not for Powell. After five years living and breathing the build, he aims to hand the baton to the next generation. He wants to go sailing. This year he captains Pellew on Cornish and Scottish charters alongside his wife, Joanne, as first mate, a cook and, for longer passages, a trainee. Next year? Perhaps the Azores, maybe Norway or Greece.

The interior is surprisingly light and modern, concealing luxuries such as a boiling water tap and dishwasher, as well as a dining area for 12 crew to gather around. Photo: Nic Compton

“She represents freedom. She’s for going over the horizon. That’s what boats are all about.” Given her MCA Category 0 rating, those horizons are limitless.

So what happens if Powell is commissioned to create the first 110ft Cornish merchant schooner of the modern era? He thinks. Then with a smile: “I suppose I’d have to say yes, wouldn’t I.”

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Downeaster 38 Cutter The URL for this page is 38 Cutter Added 14-Sep-2024 © 2001-2024 ./)   . . ./)   . . Great choice! Your favorites are temporarily saved for this session. Sign in to save them permanently, access them on any device, and receive relevant alerts. Sailboat Guide Bristol Channel Cutter Bristol Channel Cutter is a 37 ′ 9 ″ / 11.5 m monohull sailboat designed by Lyle C. Hess and built by Cape George Marine Works and Sam L. Morse Co. starting in 1975. 21 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 22 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 23 / 53 Denmark 1999 Bristol Channel Cutter $99,000 USD View 24 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 25 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 26 / 53 Denmark 1999 Bristol Channel Cutter $99,000 USD View 27 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 28 / 53 Denmark 1999 Bristol Channel Cutter $99,000 USD View 29 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 30 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 31 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 32 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 33 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 34 / 53 Denmark 1999 Bristol Channel Cutter $99,000 USD View 35 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 36 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 37 / 53 Denmark 1999 Bristol Channel Cutter $99,000 USD View 38 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 39 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 40 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 41 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 42 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 43 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 44 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 45 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 46 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 47 / 53 Wiscasset, ME, US Bristol Channel Cutter $55,000 USD View 48 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 49 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 50 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 51 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 52 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View 53 / 53 Vancouver, BC, CA 1982 Bristol Channel Cutter $101,950 USD View Rig and Sails Auxilary power, accomodations, calculations. The theoretical maximum speed that a displacement hull can move efficiently through the water is determined by it's waterline length and displacement. It may be unable to reach this speed if the boat is underpowered or heavily loaded, though it may exceed this speed given enough power. Read more. Classic hull speed formula: Hull Speed = 1.34 x √LWL Max Speed/Length ratio = 8.26 ÷ Displacement/Length ratio .311 Hull Speed = Max Speed/Length ratio x √LWL Sail Area / Displacement Ratio A measure of the power of the sails relative to the weight of the boat. The higher the number, the higher the performance, but the harder the boat will be to handle. This ratio is a "non-dimensional" value that facilitates comparisons between boats of different types and sizes. Read more. SA/D = SA ÷ (D ÷ 64) 2/3 SA : Sail area in square feet, derived by adding the mainsail area to 100% of the foretriangle area (the lateral area above the deck between the mast and the forestay). D : Displacement in pounds. Ballast / Displacement Ratio A measure of the stability of a boat's hull that suggests how well a monohull will stand up to its sails. The ballast displacement ratio indicates how much of the weight of a boat is placed for maximum stability against capsizing and is an indicator of stiffness and resistance to capsize. Ballast / Displacement * 100 Displacement / Length Ratio A measure of the weight of the boat relative to it's length at the waterline. The higher a boat’s D/L ratio, the more easily it will carry a load and the more comfortable its motion will be. The lower a boat's ratio is, the less power it takes to drive the boat to its nominal hull speed or beyond. Read more. D/L = (D ÷ 2240) ÷ (0.01 x LWL)³ D: Displacement of the boat in pounds. LWL: Waterline length in feet Comfort Ratio This ratio assess how quickly and abruptly a boat’s hull reacts to waves in a significant seaway, these being the elements of a boat’s motion most likely to cause seasickness. Read more. Comfort ratio = D ÷ (.65 x (.7 LWL + .3 LOA) x Beam 1.33 ) D: Displacement of the boat in pounds LOA: Length overall in feet Beam: Width of boat at the widest point in feet Capsize Screening Formula This formula attempts to indicate whether a given boat might be too wide and light to readily right itself after being overturned in extreme conditions. Read more. CSV = Beam ÷ ³√(D / 64) From BlueWaterBoats.org : With all the nostalgia of yesteryear the Bristol Channel Cutter 28, introduced in 1975, represents a pinnacle of ruggedness and practicality while retaining respectable performance. Few boats can take the abuse of extended voyaging as well as the Bristol Channel Cutter and I guess it’s become something of a Lyle Hess masterpiece. Late designer Lyle Hess achieved somewhat of a cult following among a select group of small boat adventurers. In particular his designs were popularized by Lin and Larry Pardey and their series of cruising books. Hess is probably best known for Lin and Larry’s 24 foot Seraffyn and their subsequent 29 foot Teleisin . And really when you dig a little deeper, you’ll find the Bristol Channel Cutter was created in answer to sailors wanting a “Pardey” yacht. Bad puns aside, among the endearing features for the long distance sailor are huge stowage, a sensible layout and a proven track record. Besides Serrafyn and Teleisin’s well known 40,000 mile circumnavigation and five passages of the potentially treacherous Tasman Sea, a Bristol Channel Cutter was first in the Newport to Ensenada Race of 1978, and first in class in 1979. And in the 1980-1990s Roger Olson sailed his Bristol Channel Cutter Xiphias 50,000 miles over a thirteen year two-ocean odyssey. Upon first glance the sheer size of the bowsprit is noticeable, together with a bumpkin, the boat can carry an immense amount of canvas for her displacement. A peek under her waterline reveals lines that look conservative and traditional. There’s the familiar wineglass section profiles and a full keel that’s missing the popular forefoot cutaway that many designers employ to improve nimbleness and reduce drag. Yet on closer inspection performance tweaks can be found. A fine bow entry coupled with maximum beam quite far aft is good for close windedness and flat sections with minimal deadrise aft aid righting efforts when heeled over under sail. The Bristol Channel Cutter’s layout has been thoughtfully designed to the minute details, we hear even the smallest of owner modifications will have ramifications elsewhere. Fitting for this kind of sailboat, don’t expect staterooms designed for time on anchor – all berths are seagoing. There’s four of them – two settees, a pilot berth, and the all important quarter berth. Stowage is abundant and everywhere. In short a long distance voyager’s dream. So the story goes, a friend of Lyle Hess asked for a small traditional boat that would cross oceans. To that commission, Hess presented his interpretation of the pilot boat designs which had proven themselves in the 19th century. These workboats were heavy in displacement, long in waterline with wineglass sections and hard bilges. Their rigs carried lots of canvas, they’d lug a lot of cargo, and could sail fast on all points of sail. Hess’ initial design was a 28 footer, which then was scaled down to a gaff-rigged 24 foot design to mitigate his friend’s concern over construction cost. This boat became Renegade of Newport , launched in 1950. By the 1960s the Renegade caught the interest of Larry Pardey. Upon request Hess drew up plans for a marconi-rigged version for carvel wood construction. This boat became Seraffyn which launched in 1968. Through the magic of books and articles written by the Pardeys, an interest in small boat voyaging emerged with the famous Pardey tagline “go small, go simple, go now”. It drew attention to Hess’ work and Hess answered this interest by designing the 28 foot Bristol Channel Cutter, for construction in fiberglass by the Sam L. Morse Company. The Bristol Channel Cutter 28 launched in 1975. In 1992, before a recession, Morse sold the company he founded to a Hess fan named George Hylkema, who hired Roger Olson, fresh from his 50,000 mile world cruise onboard Xyphias brimming with ideas to improve the boat. Olson bought the business in 1995 before selling the company only three years later in December 1998 to the fourth and final owner, Sumio Oya. By 2007, Sam L. Morse Company was struggling to be viable. Its classic boats were in less demand and profits tended to be found in building much larger vessels. New mass production technologies from other manufacturers made it harder to compete. After the completion of its 126th hull, Cape George Marine Works was given the molds along with the right to build both the Bristol Channel Cutter and the Falmouth Cutter 22 . For Sumio Oya, it was important to protect the quality and reputation of the boat so upon selecting Cape George to carry on the name, the deal involved no money apart from the cost of relocating the molds which was paid by Cape George. Before closing, Sam L. Morse Company did consider the opportunity to build a larger Hess boat but in the end there was not enough capital to launch the project. The company continued operation through to August 2008 helping Cape George build two more Bristol Channel Cutters before finally shutting down, leaving Cape George to carry on availability. Since then Cape George rolled out an additional hull in January 2011. Beyond the 129 American boats it is estimated between 30-45 hulls were built in a Canadian yard called Channel Cutter Yachts located in Vancouver, BC. These were bootleg versions for which no design royalties were paid. From what we hear the Canadian boats were also built to a very high standard. Links, References and Further Reading » Bristol Channel Cutter / Falmouth Cutter Owners website, information, images and discussions . » Lyle Hess: A Profile by Chuck Malseed, a historic look at his work, Cruising World Magazine Feb, 1977. » The Bristol Channel Cutter 28 on the official Cape George Marine Works website . » Bristol Channel Cutter Review by Jack Horner, BoatUS.com » Bristol Channel Cutter Review, Boats.com , Aug 2000 » A vintage video tribute to the Bristol Channel Cutter including construction details. Embed this page on your own website by copying and pasting this code. Discover Related Sailboats Twenty Small Sailboats to Take You Anywhere Blue Water Boats Nor'sea 27 Hans Christian 33 Downeaster 32 Westsail 28 Aquarius 24 Pilot Cutter Pacific Seacraft Orion 27 Cape George 36 About Sailboat Guide ©2024 Sea Time Tech, LLC This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. 309 IMAGES The history of Pilot Cutters and how they sail today Cutter or sloop rig? Which is best for offshore and ocean cruising What's in a Rig? The Cutter Rig Is The Cutter Rig Sailboat the Best Choice for Offshore Cruising? Cutter Rigged Sailboats [GUIDE] Advantages, Sailing, Options & Features Victorian gentleman’s racing cutter Integrity under sail VIDEO Episode 5- The Incompetent Crew- Living full time on a 40ft sailboat with hank on sails In the Water voilier côtre norvegien à vendre Chichagof Circumnavigation mobile Making Sailboat Cockpit Trim with a Router Table (Catalina 30) Historic Pilot Cutters COMMENTS What's in a Rig? The Cutter Rig The Cutter Rig. By: Pat Reynolds Sailboat Rigs, Sailboats. What's in a Rig Series #2. A variation on the last installment of What's in a Rig (the sloop) is the Cutter Rig. Although it has gone through some changes through the course of history, the modern cutter rig is generally a set-up with two headsails. The forward sail is called the ... Cutter (boat) A gaff cutter, Kleine Freiheit, with a genoa jib set USCGC Legare, an example of a US Coast Guard cutter A cutter is a name for various types of watercraft.It can apply to the rig (sail plan) of a sailing vessel (but with regional differences in definition), to a governmental enforcement agency vessel (such as a coast guard or border force cutter), to a type of ship's boat which can be used ... Cutter Rigged Sailboats [GUIDE] Advantages, Sailing, Options & Features Advantages of a Cutter Rig. There are a lot of reasons to like a cutter. A cutter rigged boat has redundant rigging and spreads the sail load across its rigging. And a cutter rig offers increased sail options-it offers increased sail area in light winds and easy and efficient ways to decrease sail area in heavy weather. Is The Cutter Rig Sailboat the Best Choice for Offshore Cruising? Why the Cutter Rig Sailboat Is My First Choice for Cruising. The cutter rig sailboat has two jibs, the foremost one usually a high-cut yankee set on the forestay and the other a staysail set on an inner forestay. It's a flexible, easy to handle rig, which is why I - along with a lot of other cruising sailors - am such a fan of it. Cutter Rig—Optimizing and/or Converting Great article, I love my cutter, and find that my boat points at least 5 degrees higher when sailed as a cutter, rather than as a sloop.( I have a removable inner forestay with a Highfield lever for tensioning it) . I have a hanked on staysail , which I prefer on smaller cutter, say under 40 ft. This allows one to have a hanked on storm jib, if ... Sailboat Cutters: The Ultimate Guide Swan sailboat cutters embody the perfect synergy between elegance, performance, and luxury. With a rich heritage and a legacy of producing top-quality yachts, Swan has earned a reputation for excellence in the sailboat cutter market. Swan sailboat cutters are designed to deliver exceptional performance and an unparalleled sailing experience. Cutter cutter, small, speedy sailing vessel similar to a sloop. It has a single mast rigged fore and aft, carrying a mainsail and at least two headsails. Its traditional hull design, deep and narrow, features a raking transom stern, a vertical stem, and a long bowsprit. In U.S. Coast Guard usage, the term cutter refers to a Coast Guard vessel more ... Cutter Rig—Should You Buy or Convert? So, in summary, I think a cutter is a better way to break the sails down into more manageable sizes and the problem with cutter rigged ketches is that except in the above mentioned much larger boats, the fore-triangle ends up too small to make a good cutter. 12 Reasons The Cutter Is A Great Offshore Voyaging Rig So, to me, a true cutter is a boat that is rigged in such a way that the jib and staysail can and will be used at the same time pretty much any time the apparent wind is forward of the beam. And that in turn requires a high-cut jib-topsail (yankee) and a low-cut staysail, both with little or no overlap of the mast. This is not a cutter. Rigs: Cutter Cutter Rig. First built year is circa. Mast height and sail area above is for the carbon mast. Similar to the 44.2 but with an extended stern to accommodate a larger cockpit. The 47.2 also has twin wheels vs a single wheel on the 44.2. Also has twin daggerboards located near the stern. Displacement above is lightship. Virtues of a Cutter Rig, by Lin and Larry Pardey Preview: Our Favorite Sailing Rig: The Cutter, by Lin and Larry Pardey. Email this Post to a Friend. F or any sailing boat under 45 feet, nothing beats a properly-designed cutter rig, especially if you sail shorthanded. By properly designed I mean, having a staysail that is large enough to be used as the only headsail in winds above 20 knots. Cutter or sloop rig? Which is best for offshore and ocean cruising We offer the cutter rig on all our modern offshore cruising yachts from the Rustler 37 (shown) upwards. For a cutter to work efficiently, the base of its foretriangle needs to be a minimum of around 4.25m (14ft). The deck must be strongly reinforced, and it may need some supporting structure beneath it, to take the loads from the inner forestay. The Ultimate Guide to Sail Types and Rigs (with Pictures) Cutter - one mast, three or more sails; 1. Gaff Cat Cat boat with single gaff-rigged sail 2. Gaff Sloop Sloop with gaff rig 3. Cutter Classic cutter from 1884, unbeaten in all her races in America in 1886 Two-masted rigs. Two-masted boats can have an extra mast in front or behind the main mast. Behind (aft of) the main mast is called a mizzen mast. Cutter-Rigged Sailboat Definition: Everything You Need to Know A cutter-rigged sailboat is a versatile and elegant type of sailing vessel that offers sailors a range of benefits and capabilities. With its distinctive rigging setup, the cutter sailboat has long been favored by sailors for its maneuverability, stability, and ability to handle different wind conditions. In this comprehensive definition, we ... What is a cutter sailboat? Cutter sailboats feature a mast that is installed further towards the back of the vessel than other sailboat types. This configuration enables the sailboat to have a more balanced distribution of weight, making the boat more maneuverable and stable, especially in heavy winds. Additionally, since the mast is relatively shorter than other ... Cutter Rigged Sailboats A cutter rig sailboat has two headsails instead of just one. The jib is located forward and is either attached to a bowsprit or the bow. The inner sail is ca... The Cutter Sailplan Many people choose a cutter as a cruising rig because it is the most "practical.". A cutter rig is the cheapest to erect, he easiest to securely stay, and when designed with a moderate aspect ratio, a self-tending boomed staysail, and a jib, a cutter is the handiest and probably most efficient in more different situations than the other rigs. Bristol Channel Cutter 28: Circumnavigator's Choice Based on his experience as a hands-on boater, he established a marine-based business after completing his police career. He now maintains, renovates and upgrades sail and power boats for local and non-resident owners in the off-season. This sturdy Bristol Channel Cutter 28 has survived vast ocean gales and knockdowns. Sailing Pellew, the biggest Falmouth pilot cutter in 150 years The gaff cutter was the ultimate rig of its era: flexible, relatively easy to manage, able to pivot a boat easily around its mast and drive it to windward. The perfect rig for pilot boats, in ... Cutter boats for sale Cutter sailing vessels for sale on YachtWorld are available for an assortment of prices from $13,690 on the lower-cost segment of yachts all the way up to $2,975,342 for the most extravagant models. Find Cutter boats for sale in your area & across the world on YachtWorld. Offering the best selection of boats to choose from. Falmouth Cutter 22 Falmouth Cutter 22 is a 30′ 6″ / 9.3 m monohull sailboat designed by Lyle C. Hess and built by Cape George Marine Works and Sam L. Morse Co. starting in 1980. ... Like all of these boats, the Falmouth Cutter also has the ability to go to windward at 50 miles an hour up the Interstate on the back of a trailer. 1978 Downeaster 38 Cutter sailboat for sale in Florida A Classic round the World, Blue Water - Open Ocean, Center Cockpit, Cutter. The boat features a newer Westerbeke Diesel Engine. The boat was refit in 2016, she is very well built, very solid and, strong running. Original owner had taken this boat around the world, Most recently purchased in Honduras in 2016 she had a full refit, was sailed to ... Bristol Channel Cutter Bristol Channel Cutter is a 37′ 9″ / 11.5 m monohull sailboat designed by Lyle C. Hess and built by Cape George Marine Works and Sam L. Morse Co. starting in 1975. Cutter Sailboats for sale These sailboats have a minimum total sail area of 16 square feet, a maximum total sail area of 2,249 square feet and an average of 887 square feet. Boat Trader currently has 113 cutter sailboats for sale, including 8 new vessels and 105 used and custom yachts listed by both individuals and professional dealerships mainly in United States. catamaran gulet motorboat powerboat riverboat sailboat trimaran yacht