Large gaff-rigged mainsail on the sloop Clearwater

A gaff rigged sail and its surrounding spars

Gaff rig^[1] is a sailing rig (configuration of sails) in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar (pole) called the gaff. The gaff enables a fore and aft sail to be four sided, rather than triangular, and as much as doubles the sail area that can be carried by that mast and boom (if a boom is used in the particular rig). Additionally, for any given area of sail, the gaff rig will have a lower heeling moment than a triangular sail.

A sail hoisted from a gaff is called a gaffrigged sail.

Description[link]

Gaff rig remains the most popular rig for schooner and barquentine mainsails and other course sails, and spanker sails on a square rigged vessel are always gaff rigged. On other rigs, particularly the sloop, ketch and yawl, gaff rigged sails were once common but have now been largely replaced by the bermuda rig sail, which, in addition to being simpler than the gaff rig, usually allows boats to sail closer to the direction the wind is coming from.

The gaff is hoisted by two halyards:

Halyards (and edges) on a gaff rigged sail

• The throat halyard lifts the end closer to the mast and bears the main weight of the sail and the tension of the luff.
• The peak halyard lifts the end further from the mast, and bears the leech tension.

Additionally, a gaff vang may be fitted. It is a line attached to the end of the gaff which prevents the gaff from sagging downwind. Gaff vangs are difficult to rig on the aft-most sail, so are typically only found on schooners or ketches, and then only on the foresail or mainsail.

A triangular fore-and-aft sail called a gaff topsail may be carried between the gaff and the topmast or the gaff and a jack-yard.

Gunter-rigged boats are similar, smaller vessels on which the gaff is raised by a single halyard running on a wire gunter. On these rigs the gaff may be very nearly vertical and a topsail is never carried. Another variation is a gaff with no halyard. One end of the spar is attached to the peak of the sail and the gaff is hoist until it tensions the head and leach and then the other end is secured to the mast near the tack with a Snotter and are called Spritsails. This is considered a totally different rig.

Gallery[link]

See also[link]

• Gunter
• Parts of a sail
• Winkle Brig

References[link]

Look up gaff or gaffe in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Gaff may refer to:

Pole-shaped devices[link]

• Fishing gaff, a pole used in fishing
• Gaff or hakapik, used as a seal-hunting weapon
• Gaff rig; A fore-and-aft sailing arrangement where the sail is held up by a spar called a gaff

Ankle-worn devices[link]

• Gaff, spurs in variations of cockfighting
• Gaff, a means of access to utility poles in climbing

Other[link]

• Gaff (UK slang), a place of residence or work;^[1][2] a house, flat, apartment, place, or building.^[3]
• Gaff, fictional character in the film Blade Runner
• Penny gaff, 19th-century English variety show
• Operation Gaff, 1944 military mission of assassination
• Gaff, or cache-sexe, an item worn as means of concealing male genitals when wearing traditionally female clothing
• GAFF, generalized AMBER force field in molecular-simulation program
• Gaff, a character in the Eon Kid series

See also[link]

• Gaff tape or gaffer tape, a form of sticky tape
• Gaffe, an embarrassing error
• Gaffer (disambiguation)
• Gaff art, another term for graffiti
• gaf, an Arabic letter

References[link]

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