#sailplan

After last year's succes of this 'best 3 masted sail plan' poll, we are now going for the 2 masted variants!

Brig: Square sails on both masts, aft mast taller. 1 fore-and-aft sail behind main (aft) mast for manoeuvering.

Brigantine: Fore mast rigged with square sails. Aft mast fore-and-aft main sail, but square top and topgallant.

Schoonerbrig / Hermaphrodite brig: Fore mast rigged with square sails, aft mast rigged fore-and-aft.

Schooner: all masts rigged fore-and-aft. With the aft mast being taller.

Topsail schooner: Schooner + square topsails on one or both masts.

Ketch: fore-and-aft rigged, with the fore mast taller and the aft mast smaller.

Junk: Full batten sails

Dhow / Felucca: Lateen sails on both masts

Yawl: fore-and-aft rigged, but aft mast much smaller and postioned behind the rudder.

Lugger: Fore and aft rigged on both masts (either one can be taller or both of equal length) But the sails hang off yards, which protrude a little bit before the mast.

Bilander: Square rigged on the fore mast. Lateen mainsail on the taller aft mast, with top and top-gallant square sails above that.

Snow: Almost the same as Brig or Brigantine. But the Fore-aft-Sail of the aft mast is flown of a smaller mast directly behind the main mast, attached top and bottom.

Or how to show off your newly acquired Microsoft Excel skills to create a sail plan calculator. I’ve been pondering the complexity of the sails to go on Dwynwen for some time. Being a traditionalist I really fancied a yawl rigged gaff set up complete with bowsprit foresail and a topsail too. But on a 12 foot Selway Fisher Waterman?

Must be ruddy mad but I’m going for it. Dwynwen may be my first build of many. The Navigator; Dwynwen II is still a long term possibility, but for the now, having a multi sail rig like this would give me the chance to experiment without a huge outlay. So. The Mk 1 calculator is now working. Nothing major but will throw out the sail plan square footage, including for the gaff sail. Took a bit of playing about with Excel but got there in the end.