Talk:Rig (sailing)

I hope you love me
I created graphics from scratch for most of the standard plans in Inkscape. I created them from descriptions and photographs. I did a lot of what amounted to design work, too. &#8669;Casito&#8669;Talk 03:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

looks great Enjoyhats 05:36, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

They're awesome. I would like to suggest, though that we move 'catboat' and 'gunter' up before sloop, so that they essentially progress from fewest sails to most sails. Coldnorth (talk) 19:58, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Wonderful images! Bravo! One possible error - It looks like the Bragantine image is actually a Hermaphrodite Brig. A Brigantine should have a couple square-rigged sails over the fore-and-aft mainsail. It would be nice to add one for a Yawl too (A 2-masted, fore-and-aft-rigged sailing vessel similar to the ketch but having a smaller mizzenmast (or jigger) stepped abaft the rudderpost. Also called a "dandy".) mbjenkins (talk) 10:07, 20 June 2011 (EST)

You have no idea how valuable this is to those of us who do image cataloging/labelling.

Great. I modified your proa image and made a. Thanks, Casito! HLHJ (talk) 03:17, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Needed: sail plan image to replace Image:Tackling.png
Image:Tackling.png is beautiful, but it describes the tackling, that is, the lines used to hold and manipulate the sails rather than the sails themselves. If anybody has a numbered image with a legend for courses, topgallants etc., please put it up. Gaal 09:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Sailing re-organization effort
Take a minute to read the comments at Talk:Sailing#Re-write effort -- non how-to et seq. Some of us are working on re-organizing the sailing-related articles. See if you agree with our approach and give us some help. Mrees1997 19:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Sail Plan diagram
I need a diagram of a Junk Sail that labels al the diferent parts.

-Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.136.214.34 (talk) 13:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Try Junk_rig, User talk:207.136.214.34. Actually, that ref has a variety of junk rigs. Maybe we need a junk section.HLHJ (talk) 03:20, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I noticed that the sails jumped from Skysail to Moonraker. I always thought the full sequence was: I think that was on the East Indiaman Essex, famous for having the most sails of any ship, ever. If there was only one sail above the skysail, I think it was called the moonsail. My only source is a dictionary that I have since lost. J S Ayer (talk) 18:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Skysail
 * 2) Cloudscraper
 * 3) Moonraker
 * 4) Stargazer  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.234.213.66 (talk) 13:49, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Remove information from Junk
There is some information in the Junk description that seems to be extraneous to the article subject (Sail-Plan). Namely, that some of the largest sailing ships constructed were Junks, the business about the water-tight holds and. It's been there since a very early revision [] before a separate Junk article seems to have been created, so I see the reason the information was originally presented in this article. But now I think it's time for it to go.

Since it's been present in the article for so long, I wanted to ask before deleting it. Paul Moir (talk) 15:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Xebec v. Polacre
I'm not qualified to correct it, but the definition given of a xebec seems to be that of a polacre, and disagrees with the WP page xebec, which speaks largely of polacre-xebecs and suggests that the significance lies in the hull, not the sail plan. Anyone?Czrisher (talk) 16:06, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, it would appear from the caption that a xebec and a felucca are the same thing (if the polacre, described as square at the fore and lanteen at main and mizzen, exchanges her square mast for another lanteen as suggested, she would have three lanteens like the felucca), whereas from what I recall of the life of Thomas Cochrane the xebec that he famously captured (El Gamo) was square on the fore and main and lanteen at the mizzen (like the second picture for a ship rig) - anyone clear this up? 62.196.17.197 (talk) 17:10, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Hermaphrodite Brig
It would be nice to have an illustration of a hermaphrodite brig. Thanks, Casito, for all your previous work! Taquito1 (talk) 04:31, 23 October 2009 (UTC)


 * The image of the Brigantine is actually a Hermaphrodite Brig (aka Brig-Schooner) A brigantine has two square topsails (main topsail and topgallant) over the fore and aft rigged mainsail on the [aft] mainmast. A Hermaphrodite Brig is square-rigged on the foremast combined with a schooner rig on the mainmast.
 * mbjenkins (talk) 10:02, 20 June 2011 (EST)


 * The hermaphrodite brig should really be re-titled to it’s other well-used name, the half-brig. The description in the text, referring to hermaphrodite as ‘literally half and half’ is very offensive, and whilst clearly this was not considered an issue at the time of the vessel being in major use, it is right that the ship class be referred to in a way that has moved with the times as all terminology and language does (and hermaphrodite brig is possibly the less common of the two names anyway!). The alternative terms including hermaphrodite brig would still be kept in the text, but the title would be changed to half-brig.


 * I’ve included some links below to reference it’s usage and to see how similar language and terminology issues have been discussed in other topics and how terms regularly fall out of use.


 * https://fitzhenrylaneonline.org/historical_material/?type=Vessel+Types&section=Brig+%28Hermaphrodite+or+Half%29
 * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_slur
 * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pejorative
 * BenjaminBluesilk (talk) 07:48, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Several points out of this: (1)The technical term "hermaphrodite brig" is the American usage for "brigantine". The variant of this terminology, "half brig" is the regional usage found in New England. So the different terms are regional, and it would be wrong to substitute one with another. Note that the references used in the article are works with a regional (New England) emphasis. (2) I am mystified as to why you think a technical term is offensive. Do you make the same accusations to botanists who compare hermaphrodite plants to those which are, for instance, dioecious? How do you react to articles like Gender of connectors and fasteners? Or Galway hooker (to stick with a nautical theme)? (3) You might also like to consider that Wikipedia is not censored by its editors (H:CEN)ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:56, 23 January 2021 (UTC)


 * The article, Hermaphrodite, says regarding human anatomy, "... the word hermaphrodite is considered to be misleading and stigmatizing,[5][6] as well as 'scientifically specious and clinically problematic.'" However, the term is clearly much broader in the context of biology and here as a nautical term. It doesn't mean "half and half"; it derives from Hermes-Aphorodite. I concur that censorship is not a reason for omitting a widely and innocently used term. HopsonRoad (talk) 16:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Many-masted barques
I am about to remove the statement, "Some barks (see below) have had as many as twelve masts." To the best of my knowledge, no bark has ever had as many as six masts. I am open to being educated, but I insist on verifiability. J S Ayer (talk) 00:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Other rigs
If we are going for thoroughness, we could use descriptions and drawings of a staysail schooner, a three-masted jackass-barque, and a four-masted jackass-barque. J S Ayer (talk) 02:31, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, could we see examples of the full plan for upper sails, such as not only skysails, but also cloudscrapers, moonrakers, and stargazers? Also, the mention of the Bonaventure (mast abaft the the Mizzen in a four-masted ship), please? Look to the "Essex" for a really massive sail plan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.166.55.113 (talk) 13:21, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Balestron rigs and kite rigs are also missing, along with all but one type of crab claw sail and junk rig. HLHJ (talk) 03:24, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

A nameless rig as far as I know: about 1850 the SS Great Britain (both a steamship and a sailing ship) was re-rigged with four masts, fore-and-aft rigged on the first and fourth, square rigged on the second and third (tallest) masts. Any thoughts on this rig? J S Ayer (talk) 17:22, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Feluccas
A felucca is defined in the article as having three lateen-rigged masts, but I would suggest that single- and two-masted lateen-rigged coasting vessels in the Med in the 18th and early 19th century were also called feluccas. --Michael K. Smith (talk) 00:15, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The article felucca says that a felucca has one or two masts. I searched for an image of a three-masted felucca, but all I came up with was miniatures.  By the way, is there any difference between a felucca and a xebec? J S Ayer (talk) 04:08, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Proas and crab claw sails
The Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian proas  and  other  vessels  with  their highly efficient two sparred  crab claw   sail (as distinct from the  less  efficient Lateens) are  a  significant  omission here so  far, considering  the navigational  and   nautical  prowess of  these peoples predating any similar   European   efforts. See "We, the Navigators: The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific" by David  Lewis  and "Sail  Performance: Techniques  to Maximise Sail Power"  by  CA   Marchaj  for   references. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bcebul (talk • contribs) 04:07, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I think a section of crab-clawed sail plans would be appropriate. HLHJ (talk) 03:21, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Bobstay and Martingales
In the article, the definitions of bobstay and martingale have been confused. The bobstay is the stay beneath the bowsprit which counteracts the pull of the headstays and prevents the bowsprit from lifting. On some vessels twin bobstays were used, angled apart. The martingales (more commonly known on modern yachts as "whisker stays" or whiskers) are the stays at the side of the bowsprit that prevent side-to-side movement. On some vessels the angle of the bobstay is widened by running it under a vertical or near-vertical spar beneath the bowsprit known as the "dolphin striker", which performs the same function for the bowsprit that a "spreader" performs on a mast, and on some vessels "martingale booms" perform a similar function for the martingales. Actually, details of these components of the rig do not really belong in an article on the sail plan. They should be in a separate article on rigging. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.67.206.107 (talk) 13:51, 16 July 2011 (UTC)


 * My research suggests differently, and it appears that a martingale and a dolphin striker are, in fact, the different terms for the same thing, i.e., the vertical spar that holds the lines that counteract the tension created by the jibs. If you look at the article on dolphin striker you will see what I mean.  Can you provide some citations that support your argument?  I would be glad to see them and see how they compare with those used in the dolphin striker article. Thanks!   KDS 4444  Talk   13:26, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Speed limit of Brig is 11knots?
Brig: two masts, both square-rigged with a spanker on the mainmast. They are considered very fast and maneuverable, and can reach speeds of up to 11 knots.

The above statement is entirely inaccurate. A brig of 60 ft (unusually small for this sailplan) at the water line might only get 11knots, a brige of 120 Lwl would get something more like 15 or 16 knots.

Speed has less to do with sailplan as it has to do with hull length...Some hulls that are heavy or very heavy displacement need more sail to push them, but the speed limit so to speak is limited by the hull. You can load more sail on just about any kind of sail plan except catboats and sloops...cutters can load more sail on, but adding more staysails and properly designed for the rig between the jib and the main mast.

Lets remove the reference to absolute speeds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.155.124.81 (talk) 15:29, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Can we have a sail-plan gallery?
something like this ... User:Siznax/sandbox

Siznax (talk) 03:25, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I like it... KDS444 (talk) 06:16, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks. I added it. Siznax (talk) 18:50, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Great honor to those who have done this. I regret imposing on someone else's talents, but we have photographs of staysail schooners here and at Schooner; could we have a diagram, pretty please? J S Ayer (talk) 18:28, 29 January 2021 (UTC)


 * KDS444, I believe that J S Ayer is requesting a diagram of a staysail schooner, if you'd be willing to generate one. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 19:26, 29 January 2021 (UTC)


 * J S Ayer, it appears that KDS444, who made many of the diagrams in question, has been blocked indefinitely. HopsonRoad (talk) 19:29, 29 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you, HopsonRoad (sniff). J S Ayer (talk) 20:44, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Square rigged into wind
It says shipped rig were popular "because of high performance on all points of wind". My understanding, and obvious from observation, is that square rigs were lousy at sailing into wind. I've never understood why they were ever used at all, especially in unknown waters. Cannot tack, easy to get blown into rocks and reefs. And a small boat sailer spends most of their time tacking into wind, as the down wind runs are quick and easy. Some clarification somewhere would be good. I have marked it dubious. Tuntable (talk) 08:09, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
 * My understanding, gained largely from the Hornblower novels, is that big square-riggers are faster running before the wind. They can tack, though it takes a big crew.  The existing statement should probably be improved. J S Ayer (talk) 19:11, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, ships are more efficient at carrying large cargoes across long distances of open ocean, which is why they were favored for duties like Europe to South America or Australia to Europe. J S Ayer (talk) 04:03, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * No, the issue is that there were, at any point in time, size limits to fore and aft rigged vessels. These are dictated by the performance characteristics of the sailcloth and rigging available. Other technological considerations come into play with things like mechanical assistance for hoisting large sails. Square rig was much less sensitive to these problems, and so if you wanted a larger ship, you had to choose square rig. That is why you see large schooners come into existence in the closing phases of the age of sail - steam winches, wire rope, etc. These points are well discussed in The Merchant Schooners by Basil Greenhill. Greenhill was a maritime historian who was in charge of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich in the era when this was a highly respected academic museum. It is also worth pointing out that square rig worked fine when everyone was using it - no-one had a competitive advantage - shippers could tolerate their cargoes being windbound in the Downs (or where-ever). It was the advent of steamships that upset this market equilibrium.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:49, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Hard news, friend, you just explained it better than I did. J S Ayer (talk) 16:57, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

"Types of Ships" layout cleanup?
The diagrams in the 'Types of Ships' section are awkwardly placed. They're not actually contained inside their respective list entries, so depending on the type of reader/browser you use it's not immediately obvious if each diagram belongs to the paragraph above it or the one below. I feel like these diagrams should be embedded/floated within their respective paragraphs as part of each list entry, rather than between them. Is there an existing rule in a style guide that governs how images should be placed in this sort of list? 96.237.174.181 (talk) 14:20, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I know of no style guide, but your suggestion sounds good. If you can implement it, I say go for it!   KDS 4444  Talk  12:08, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. I'll take a crack at it then. 108.49.223.195 (talk) 16:27, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * So.... I did a redesign but it was WAY harder than I was expecting to make it look presentable. Things like 'fully rigged ship' has a huge blob of text and only two images, whereas 'Yawl' has three images and barely two lines, so trying to balance it out is near impossible. This isn't tabular data so I don't want to throw everything in a giant table, but Wiki-markup is very limited when it comes to layout options for images so I'm not sure what to do here. I like the look of Siznax's gallery attempt, but actually implementing that would require removing a lot of text and several images... I'm not sure if that's the right idea. The layout I just put together is still ugly, but less so then is was before... maybe. 108.49.223.195 (talk) 18:49, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I have an idea. I like this proposal so much that I think that it is totally worth cutting out a lot of the current text in order to accommodate it, and I fully support dropping a bunch of the pictures, too (many of which I myself made, so don't expect anyone to take much offense!).  The text describing each sail plan either already exists on the corresponding articles about those plans, or it certainly should— this page should not pretend to be any kind of definitive Wikipedia source on the "catboat", when that job belongs to the article on catboat!  This page should be about the variety of styles of sail plans, and it should do this in a summary way, not in-depth, for each plan.  A picture, a little text; a picture, a little text.  I think this is completely warranted.  If you would like me to take a shot at editing the text of each plan down to its essentials, leaving no more than 2 or possibly 3 sentences for each, and narrowing each plan down to a single picture, if that is really all that is standing in the way of us having the kind of informative, aesthetic arrangement you have proposed, I can totally do that.   KDS 4444  Talk  19:15, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, Siznax was the one who originally proposed the single-page image array gallery. I think something compact like that arrangement beats the ginormous ugly list that's here now. If nothing else, the main reason for having a gallery in the first place is to quickly compare different plans, and that's hard to do if you have to keep scrolling five miles up and down. The problem with this whole idea is that reducing the images might make things misleading. The Ketch images for example are pretty different, and someone not familiar with the plan may not realize that a ketch1.svg plan is the same class as a ketch2.svg version. I dunno..... are animated-gif slideshows poor taste? I wish there was a markup option that would give you a modern UI lightbox... just have one image/icon to click on and the rest pop out if you want them. The text also needs to be carefully thought out, I'm not sure how you'd reduce the whole brig/brigantine name confusion thing down to a single line. In general I agree that this page shouldn't be more than a summary though. 108.49.223.195 (talk) 05:10, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * There is certainly no injunction against gif slideshows, though they are certainly rare enough and I've seen gifs removed from articles in the past as "distracting when all a person wants to do is read the article." I do agree with you, though, that there is an issue of scale/ size to be considered (and maybe it's even a deal-killer, I am not sure): a ketch is a tiny boat compared to a fully rigged ship, and the current set of images/ diagrams in no way reflects this variation in actual vessel size— I do find that misleading if not incorrect.  We can, of course, change the relative sizes of the actual images, though doing this with any eye towards actual accuracy would be pretty pointless since I don't think we could ever do it (the variation would just be too much).  We could change the images so that each is presented in a more-or-less proportional kind of scale, with the fully rigged ship presented as the largest image and the proa and catboat as the smallest, with no literal scale meant.  Might that work?  Second to lastly, regarding the brig/ brigantine thing: that is exactly the kind of thing that we could leave to the actual articles to explain rather than trying to do so here.  And lastly, I don't know that anyone has ever noticed, but this article essentially contains no references.  Not good ones, anyway.  Wowza. I guess when you are discussing something as old skool as sail plans, people just take the info for granted.  Anyhow, thoughts on these thoughts on your thoughts?   KDS 4444  Talk  10:48, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think the images should be to scale, we'll end up with a full-rigged that's half the page width and a sunfish that's 15px. Any form of pseudo-scale will just be more confusing. Identical sized images is the way to go, we just need a disclaimer at the top of the list/table/whatever that says "not to scale". If you really want, maybe throw one of those checkered scale bars under each image, or work a statement about relative scale into the descriptions, ie; "XXXX's are small personal boats with....". Re: brig/brigantine/hermaphrodite; that's one of those things that really shouldn't be left out, even out of a summary, as it's a huge source of confusion. This is especially true since the images we have aren't great about consistency showing furled vs unfurled sales- a brig (uk) with a furled square course on the mainmast looks basically the same as a "brig" (us) that doesn't have a square course. Even if people thoroughly read the accompanying text, if they're not already familiar with the terminology (course/gaff/mainsail/topsail/etc) they still won't understand what the difference is. At worst case, another editor who comes along later who isn't aware of the "brig vs brig" issue may delete one of the entries thinking it's a duplicate/layout mistake. In general, the point of this section is to say "these are the common rigs and how to compare them". We can definitely collapse the layout down to something more manageable and prune a lot of the text to facilitate that, but not so much that the section loses it's purpose. 108.49.223.195 (talk) 02:23, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
 * And yes, the references suck. Some of the referenced pages have obviously changed over the years or gone MIA. I feel like, at least for classical ship rigs, these are effectively word definitions. Can we just reference wiktionary.org? 108.49.223.195 (talk) 02:27, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Addition of section on "DynaRig" by IP user
An IP user, User:86.80.211.74 has twice inserted an unreferenced paragraph into this article on what that user is calling a "DynaRig". The DynaRig appears to be a German invention of the 1960s, but it currently has no Wikipedia article of its own and I am not at all certain it belongs here in this article. I suspect that it is being pushed by someone with a conflict of interest, perhaps someone who works for a company associated with the DynaRig MotorSailer at RunningTideYachts Ltd. I have left a message on the IP user's talk page, but also wanted to solicit responses here. Should "DynaRig" be included here in the list of basic sail plans? What do others think? KDS 4444 Talk  12:07, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't speak for 86.80 or if they have an agenda, but I think it's at least worth considering. It's not entirely/technically true that 'DynaRig' lacks an article- one exists, but it's only for Finnish/Dutch/Russian/Ukranian. The Maltese Falcon (yacht) article also has a section about 'DynaRig', however it appears to be the first and only well-known ship to feature the plan, with all the rest being mainly small pleasure boats. That having been said, just because the ships themselves aren't important doesn't mean information on the sail plan should be ignored. The system is wildly different from normal layouts- it completely lacks rigging and the masts rotate 360 degrees, and it's fairly distinct visually, so there's some justification for interest. A lot of people who are really into sailing are aware of it already, so I'm not convinced that that person tried to add the section purely for promotional reasons (not without other evidence at least). I think the real issue here is ye olde conflict between 'notability' and 'popularity'- in other words, how weird does an uncommon thing have to be before it's worth mentioning? My personal opinion is that it's not hurting anything by including it. 108.49.223.195 (talk) 16:27, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * All that having been said, I don't 100% agree with where and how they added the information. Maybe it's worth adding a section for "other oddball designs"? 108.49.223.195 (talk) 16:34, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
 * So I just did some more research on the Dynarig, and it turns out that it looks like it is itself a notable subject, worthy of a standalone article by virtue of having been the subject of non-trivial coverage in multiple reliable independent sources. So, shut my mouth.  It looks like what AUGHT to be done is that an article should be created first, explaining what such a rig is in detail, and then a paragraph added to this article on sail plans.  Of course, I know this isn't always how it works out, which is why we have redlinks, which is, of course, okay.  I also find I like the idea of having it in a section which is somewhat set apart from the traditional well-known set of sail plans so that readers understand from the beginning that it is a novel and still somewhat experimental design.  KDS 4444  Talk  18:02, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Brig and Brigantine
Please elucidate the differences between Brig (UK meaning) and Brigantine (UK meaning): As far as I can read in the two articles, both Brig and Brigantine mainmasts are square and fore-and-aft (a gaff sail) rigged. Also sail-plan pictures do not help very much. So the matter is blurry, messy and uneasy.

Even more, as in US the meanings are different: Brig (US meaning) is both Brig (UK meaning) + Brigantine (UK meaning), if I've understood rightly, while Brigantine (USA) is the Hermaphrodite Brig.

How can we explain and arrange informations in an easy and neat way?

By the way, are all those capital letters (in this whole article, not just these two sections) correct and needed? They are not proper names. --62.19.46.1 (talk) 12:55, 9 January 2016 (UTC)


 * If you ask me, the illustration for brig is incorrect. A brig (UK) is a two masted ship, where both masts are square rigged, i.e. a full-rigged ship minus a mast. The illustration currently shown I would call a brigantine. Mjroots (talk) 21:04, 9 January 2016 (UTC)


 * A brig has both masts square rigged but also has fore and aft sails such as jibs and a spanker (driver). A brigantine has the fore mast square rigged but the aft mast fore and aft rigged, although the aft mast is not always totally devoid of square sails. This is pretty much what it says in the article. The key is to consider the sail area: If the largest sail area on the aft mast is square, it's a brig; if it's mainly fore and aft, it's a brigantine. The illustrations do show this, if you look carefully.--Ykraps (talk) 22:04, 9 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Ykraps is correct: the difference is in the main sail. On a brig, the mainsail is square and the gaff spanker is 'only' used to aid in steering. On a brigantine, the (fore-and-aft) gaff sail is the main sail (it is much larger, as is correctly depicted in the images). Another difference (which is not depicted in the linked images) is in the construction of the main mast: the main mast of a brig was made from three parts: mast*, top-mast and top-gallant mast. The mast of a brigantine had only two parts: mast* and top-mast. So in effect, the mast* of the brigantine is about the same size (height) as the mast* and top-mast of a brig combined.
 * *: mast can mean both the whole set of sticks pointing skyward, as well as the bottom section of this set. Whenever only the bottom part is meant, I put the asterix after it.


 * The confusion about British and American usage of the term is quite new (I'm almost sure it originated from a 2006 comment on the talk page of the brigantine, by Osteoderm).
 * Originally, the American usage was the same as the European usage. However, as the brigantine article correctly mentions, the term brigantine was, with the introduction of the gaff main sail and the square mainsail subsequently falling out of favor (in the U.S.), applied to what the European nations refer to as a 'Schooner brig' or 'Hermaphrodite brig'. Other than this, there is no difference in what is meant by these terms; unless ones goes back to the times that the terms were still used interchangeably (somewhere in the early 18th century). 82.173.88.91 (talk) 17:22, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 30 January 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved to Sail plan. Consensus to replace the hyphen with a space. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:40, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Sail-plan → Sail plan – MOS:HYPHEN has three criteria for using a hyphen: This use of a hyphen in the title of the article does not correspond to the MOS. It does hark back to when the use of hyphens in nautical terms was more common than today. User:HopsonRoad 14:32, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) In hyphenated personal names: John Lennard-Jones.
 * 2) To link prefixes with their main terms in certain constructions (quasi-scientific, pseudo-Apollodorus, ultra-nationalistic).
 * 3) To link related terms in compound modifiers.
 * A Google word search yielded these results on "sail plan" versus "sail-plan".


 * A search of on-line dictionaries yielded these results:
 * Dictionalry.com uses "sail plan".
 * English Oxford dictionary uses "sail plan".
 * Seatalk nautical dictionary uses "sail plan".
 * Searching on sail plan in Google (books) produces 2.02 M results with top results unhyphenated. Using exact quotes, "sailplan" shows 30,200 results, "sail plan" shows 28,200 and "sail-plan" shows 28,000. User:HopsonRoad 14:59, 30 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose - There is nothing here that needs fixing. Sail-plan (hyphenated) is a perfectly acceptable variant spelling. [] [] [] Not the most common variant, I agree, but prevalence on the internet is not a reason to change it. Wikipedia does not prefer one form of spelling over another. MOS:HYPHEN doesn't forbid hyphens in article titles otherwise we wouldn't have Cross-stitch, for example. The article was originally written in the hyphenated form [] and it should stay in that form as per MOS:RETAIN.--Ykraps (talk) 19:38, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Support – Note that "cross-stitch" is the term found in most dictionaries, whereas "sail plan" is the term found in most dictionaries. MOS:RETAIN pertains to consistency within one variety of English. If the question were British vs. North American, I'd go with British. However, the English Oxford dictionary uses "sail plan". As of this writing, the article itself contains both variants, as it did from the start. User:HopsonRoad 20:16, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Support – the Google search engine lacks the sophistication to return meaningful result in the way you are attempting. However, it is clear from casual examination that the hyphen is rarely used in practice. I support the move in the interests of removing entirely unnecessary embellishments. --Epipelagic (talk) 21:01, 30 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

One factual error - any more?
I have just corrected one factual error in the article (the name of the structure joining a topmast or topgallant mast to the mast underneath is the "trestletree", not a "tabernacle", which is the "hinge" at deck level from which a mast can be lowered to lay flat along the deck). My reference for this change is Harland, John (1984). Seamanship in the Age of Sail: an account of the shiphandling of the sailing man-of-war 1600-1860, based on contemporary sources. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-1-8448-6309-9. I have not put this reference in the article as so much of the article seems of questionable quality that I did not want to make it appear than anything other than this one correction was derived from this source.

On a quick look, this article needs a serious audit for errors and poor explanations.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 08:44, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Schooner rig
I have substantially edited the text on schooners, and have deleted the following:

"One of the easiest types to sail, but performs poorly to windward without gaff topsails. The extra sails and ease of the gaff sails make the rig easier to operate, though not necessarily faster, than a sloop on all points of sail other than up-wind.  Schooners were more popular than sloops prior to the upsurge in recreational boating.  The better performance of the sloop upwind was outweighed for most sailors by the better performance of the schooner at all other, more comfortable, points of sail.  Advances in design and equipment over the last hundred years have diminished the advantages of the schooner rig."

From my own experience skippering a 72' staysail schooner, it just didn't make any sense and I deleted the passage as little of it seemed verifiable or even justified. Other editors may take a view on this. Arrivisto (talk) 14:35, 20 July 2020 (UTC)


 * User:Arrivisto, the view of this editor (and Wikipedia policy) is that it does not matter what your own personal experience is of anything that is in Wikipedia, the text that goes into any article should be based on sources (policy: WP:VERIFY, content guideline: WP:RS). This article has some very serious problems as it stands (see section on "References needed...", below) and I suggest that these are due to the lack of sources of any kind, let alone reliable sources.
 * Obviously it helps enormously for the editor to understand the sources from their own training or experience, but that on its own is not enough.
 * Please start using some reliable sources for your editing. It actually makes the job more rewarding - either you are confirming that what you know is being confirmed by recognised, published experts or you are learning more on subjects that you are interested in. Your criticism in this section of this talk page (above) "...little of it seemed verifiable..." should be a pointer to what this is all about. If something in Wikipedia cannot be verified by the cited references, it has little value.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:06, 22 July 2020 (UTC)


 * User:ThoughtIdRetired, I know and understand Wikipedia policy on verifiability, thanks all the same! Having deleted quite a large paragraph of text which I considered to be confused and ill-informed, my clear purpose was to invite other authors to restore some or all of that paragraph should they feel my deletion was undeserved. So, for you to press me to "please start using some reliable sources for your editing" is neither appropriate nor deserved. Over the years, I have initiated several pages, I've edited and I sub-edited, and I DO use reliable sources! Arrivisto (talk) 17:12, 23 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Sorry to have struck a nerve - my comments were well intentioned. Nevertheless, this article is in desperate need of some good references. The few that appear are pretty dire. I note the 1922 book The Sailing Ships of New England, 1607-1907 is the origin of the statement that "A topsail schooner usually has two masts". The coasts of Britain and Europe were once amply populated with topsail schooners, a good proportion of which had 3 masts - looking quickly at the illustrations in Basil Greenhill's The Merchant Schooners one gets the impression that the split between 2 and 3 masted topsail schooners in British waters was about 50/50. Whatever the case, a 1922 book (used 5 times in the article!) is substantially out of date, especially when a number of more modern works by reputable experts are available. (Greenhill was the director of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich - other writers on the subject include David R MacGregor, and Tom Cunliffe has some very forthright views on terminology and the number of masts in a schooner in Hand, Reef and Steer.)
 * I will try and do my bit and add some references and reference-derived text. Despite having probably broken the rule a number of times, I do try and ensure that anything I put in Wikipedia has an immediate reference. I could write a good few paragraphs on traditional sailing craft "off the cuff" - but without references, it would be worthless. I am, however, not enthusiastic about adding references to the un-referenced work of other editors.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 18:51, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Rigging section?
Why is it in this article? It should be a simple link, elsewhere, e.g. to rigging. Likewise, there is a Glossary of nautical terms article whose content need not be repeated here. I plan to remove it, unless there is an argument to retain it. HopsonRoad (talk) 02:19, 22 July 2020 (UTC)


 * HopsonRoad I agree. This page is getting a bit long, and the rigging section on this page could usefully contribute to developing the Rigging main page. Arrivisto (talk) 17:20, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

References needed to weed out the nonsense in this article
I am surprised to see editing activity in this article that is not purposed with the urgent outstanding task of adding some quality references. As it stands, there is a huge amount of nonsense in the article - to pick out just a small sample:

The section "Lugger" under "Two masted vessels" is at substantial variance with the article Lugger, especially since a lugger does not necessarily have 2 masts, has little similarity to gaff rig (beyond sailcloth, ropes and spars) and the mention of traditional Scottish sailing craft (with their traditional names) is a complete mess of definition (and hence wrong). John Leather's book Spritsails and Lugsails is a quality source (and is often cited by other writers who know what they are talking about).

Under "Types of sail", the article states that gaff rig has a boom - whilst that is usually the case, it is not a defining feature. If some decent references had been used, this would have been clear - try Reef Hand and Steer by Tom Cunliffe (pg 47)

"......such as tea clippers, all had towering stacks of smallish square sails...." (bold added) - this is quite astounding. Clippers generally, including tea clippers, set large amounts of sail, and it was usual for this to be achieved, among other methods, by having yards which were particularly long. You can discover this from most of the books on the subject of clippers - but top works include the several books written by David R MacGregor, Cutler's Greyhounds of the Seas, Chapelle's The Search for Speed Under Sail. How do these very long yards equate with "smallish"? What was the editor who wrote this trying to say?

There is a huge amount of fixing to do in this article. Further editing without use of some decent references at hand is only going to make things worse.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 14:45, 22 July 2020 (UTC)


 * User:ThoughtIdRetired - It is true that there is a lot of work needed to prune the nonsense and knock this article into shape.


 * Recent editors (including myself) are doing our best to create a silk purse from this sow's ear. Let's continue to do so in a spirit of co-operation! Arrivisto (talk) 10:56, 2 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your comments in answer to my rather extreme display of exasperation. Right now I have a backlog of uncompleted tasks on Wikipedia and a high workload of non-Wikipedia stuff - but I am certainly following your efforts. On taking a broader view of this article, I do wonder if its overall structure is ideal - but I note that you have started tackling that. The appropriateness of some of its content is an issue, as well. I would also give a further nudge on the subject of references - any fact in the article really needs to be supported by a cited reference. All editors have their own way of working, but to illustrate the importance of references I have been spending some weeks trying to track down some decent references for just one point in another unrelated article: without those references, the article in question remains unaltered.
 * I am sorry if this sounds very "preachy" - but I am trying to pass on knowledge gained from my own mistakes.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:56, 4 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I am an outsider on this subject, but may "smallish" refer to their height relative to their immense width? J S Ayer (talk) 20:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The masts of most clippers were tall as well. The size of a sail is usually taken to be its area. Numerous references on rigging discuss the sail area of various sailplans, together with the centre of effort, the other key criterion. Stepping away from the references, you appreciate the relative sizes of a square sail when you come to stow it. It will be pulled up to the yard by the buntlines and clewlines, but any un-gathered canvas has to be gathered in by the hands who have been sent aloft. The reason clippers needed large crews was because these big sails needed a lot of people to do that job - because all that canvas is heavy. On a modestly-sized topsail schooner it is possible for one person to stow the sail (because it is a lot smaller) - it just takes a bit longer than if you have an extra person to help. If you get the opportunity to take a look at Learning the Ropes by Eric Newby.This collection of photographs gives one an understanding of the scale of these working square riggers - and this was not a clipper, the rig was sized for a much smaller crew.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:32, 1 February 2021 (UTC)


 * I can't seem to make myself clear. I have seen many photographs, paintings, and drawings of clipper ships with their tall masts and many sails, which were often several times wider than high. J S Ayer (talk) 21:07, 1 February 2021 (UTC)


 * To get the point across, one would have to go to some of the more technical sources. MacGregor's The Tea Clippers gives details of the sailplan of some of these vessels. Appendix IV gives spar dimensions for 4 ships. From here you see that Ariel (clipper) had a main yard that was 75 ft long. That's on a vessel of 852.87 Net Registered Tonnage and a register length of 197.4 ft. So this is not a large ship. Compare with Moshulu 2,911 tons, net, length 320 ft between perpendiculars (so, tonnage length) (different but similar length in her Wikipedia article). Her main yard was 95.5 ft long. (Newby, Eric. The Last Grain Race pg 33). So, the larger ship (Moshulu) is 3.41 times as big (tonnage), 1.62 times larger (length), but has a main yard only 1.27 times larger. Moshulu was an ocean carrier (built for the nitrate trade). If the two ships had rigs in proportion to their hull length, Ariel's main yard would be only 59 ft long, and much less than that if you did the arithmetic with tonnage. It really is the length of the yards that makes the sails look "short" - but they are similar or larger vertically compared to other ships. There are various narratives by top maritime historians that confirm that, in general, clippers had very long yards, usually on lofty masts. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:55, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Nonsense and other unsupported material
Yes, the article has much nonsense that needs to be deleted. Why is that material still up? Please do lots of deletion. I'll delete some of it myself when I have time to.

As one example, the article states that square sails are faster, with no qualification or specification of the conditions under which they're faster. It's astounding that that statement remains in the article. Many reputable sources can be cited that, compared to fore-&-aft sails, square-sails are better downwind, and less effective at other points of sail, at which L/D matters. ...and that they were predominant because downwind routes were preferred and arranged. ...but also because square-sales are more amenable to division into many small sails, more easily managed on a large ship.

But wouldn't it be best to just take the whole article down and start over?

(apparently by: 19:30, 5 May 2021‎ 97.82.109.213 talk‎ )

Article start/name
There is a fundamental problem with the first two sentences of this article: "A sail plan is a description of the specific ways that a sailing craft is rigged. Also, the term "sail plan" is a graphic depiction of the arrangement of the sails for a given sailing craft." Or perhaps the problem is with the article title itself.

If you study how the term "sail plan" is used in books by notable technical maritime writers, the commonest use is (taking a few of the readily available definitions): "design of sails for a vessel, giving main dimensions" "The drawing which shows the positions and sizes of sail, and of the spars and rigging, though there may be a separate and additional rigging plan" "A sail plan is a drawing showing the sizes, shapes, and positions or sails"  (The Language of Sailing (p. 245) by Richard Mayne) In The Working Guide to Traditional Small-Boat Sails - A How-To Handbook for Builders and Owners by David L. Nichols the term "sail plan" is used extensively in the discussion of the centre of effort of any plans for the sails to be used on a boat. So, "sail plan" is a technical drawing of the sails in a boat or ship's design - in this usage it is not the type of rig.

All of the above use the word "rig" to denote the type of rig on a boat or ship. That is to say: "gaff rig", "Bermuda rig" "square rig", "sloop rig", "ketch rig". I could add the authoritative Hand Reef and Steer by Tom Cunliffe uses the term "sail plan" just once, but uses the word "rig" a very large number of times.

It is rare to find such writers using "sail plan" to denote the generic arrangement of the sails: schooner, sloop, cutter, etc. or the type of individual sail: gaff, Bermuda, lug, etc. In a fairly determined search, I have discovered only one such usage by a notable maritime writer: Jenny Bennett in Sailing Rigs an Illustrated Guide (pg 5) and that seems to be a simple use-of-English matter of avoiding excessive word repetition. I am not suggesting that "sail plan" cannot mean the type of rig (as opposed to a technical or schematic drawing of the sails on a vessel) - it is just that it is a much rarer usage of the term.

So, we have an article that is about the types of sailing rigs that exist and we have it titled with a less common name for the subject.WP:COMMONNAME

As a result of the article name, the start of the article struggles to find a reference to support its definition of the term. The much more common usage is mentioned in the second sentence as an "also...". (The recent edits were about finding a good reference for the first sentence - but neither of them actually provide a definition.)

Are we at the point where a move discussion should be started to rename the article "Sailing rigs"? ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 00:06, 4 November 2021 (UTC)


 * I concur with you, that this article is a mess, ThoughtIdRetired! You're on the right track about renaming-repurposing the article. "Sailing rigs" doesn't quite nail it for me, but "Sailing craft rigs" may be too long. "Rig (sailing craft)" is another option. Cheers. HopsonRoad (talk) 00:56, 4 November 2021 (UTC)


 * ThoughtIdRetired, Ahunt, upon further reflection, I see no better alternative than ThoughtIdRetired's suggestion to rename this article "Sailing rigs", suggesting that it's an overview of different rigs, rather than being about the construction of any given rig. This title works better than "Sail plan", which is a much narrower topic about the graphic rendering of a rig.
 * Kemp describes "rig" as being, "The arrangement of a vessel's spars, rigging, and sails, as schooner rig, cutter rig,...". Let's build this article around that definition and spin off the subordinate concept of "sail plan" into a smaller article or make it a section of this article. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 02:08, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Flipped images of ships
Hello! I would like to contribute by mirroring the svg of several riggings so that the bow points to the right. This because general arrangements of ship and yachts are traditionally drawn that way - kind of opposite of what happens with cars that are usually sketched pointing to the left. is there any command I could use to flip the images, or I should download, edit them and reupload them? Cheers Awambawamb (talk) 22:15, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I suggest downloading the image and re-uploading as "Imagename-flipped". HopsonRoad (talk) 01:55, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Excess baggage
This article has long been a catch-all on nautical information. It should be focused on the topic, sail plan. All the text from the section, "Distinctions in nomenclature" to "Sail-plan measurements" is an overly lengthy rehash of what's succinctly presented in the various galleries, which link to more information on each rig. Some of the text, like for Lugger, is more extensive here than in the main article. I would move the pertinent text to the main article. The end result would be a logically organized series of images in gallery form that would take you to the type of vessel depicted. This article would add value in explaining the choices among sail plans. Enumerating each and every one is less valuable.

The "Sail-plan measurements" section should either be developed into something informative or eliminated. HopsonRoad (talk) 20:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree, it does seem to have got "out of hand". Your plan sounds reasonable. - Ahunt (talk) 21:43, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, something needs to be done. However, I think a small amount of text is needed to explain what pictures show. What is obvious in a picture to one person is not necessarily so to another.
 * A guide to the most concise description of pictures of rigs might come from the range of up-to-date nautical glossaries that are available.
 * What thinking is there on the history of rigs? Do we rely on the main articles for each? Some of these articles have yet to be written, or written to a reasonable standard.
 * Any thoughts on the name of the article? If it were simply to focus on the range of sailing rigs that are available – acting as a directory to individual articles on each – then the concept of a sail plan as the design of a rig (center of effort, etc.) should appear elsewhere in its own article. If we stick with the current title, then there should be some mention of how a designer positions the center of lateral resistance and the center of effort – but there is one big problem with this, as just about everything written on that is really a rule of thumb. See Colin Palmer (2009) Reflections on the Balance of Traditional Sailing Vessels, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 38:1, 90-96, DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-9270.2008.00206.x This demolishes the tenets of all older nautical architects, saying, for example: "In fact, the CLR is much further forward than the centre‐of‐area of the lateral plane, and the CE slightly ahead of the centre‐of‐area of the sail‐plan (which explains why ‘lead’ places the geometric CE ahead of the geometric CLR)". The paper contains useful references.
 * And I apologise for the length of the Lugger section, to which I am afraid I have just added a few words. It should rightly be in the article of that name. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 00:05, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * ThougtIdRetired and Ahunt, I exported a section of this article to a new Austronesian vessels. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 13:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Proposed move to "Sailing rigs"
Because Sailing rig and Sailing rigs direct to Rigging, moving this article to either name will require the assistance of an administrator. Hence, I'm seeking consensus that the move is appropriate, per the above discussion.

The lead sentence would become: "Sailing rigs describe the arrangement of sailing vessels' rig components, including their spars, rigging, and sails."

Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 15:14, 16 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Support - That makes sense to me. I also have the "superpowers" to make that move once you feel you have a consensus to do that! - Ahunt (talk) 15:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Support. As a very minor quibble, the first sentence uses the word "vessels" which might be a problem for land yachts, etc. However, the proposed text is probably the best solution to avoid an over-complicated first sentence. In other words, I cannot think of anything better. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 17:59, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * great, I was hoping you would voice an opinion here one way or the other. I don't think anyone else has expressed any interest. Unless has any other concerns that we should wait longer, I can just go ahead and move it as "uncontroversial". - Ahunt (talk) 18:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm good with "uncontroversial". Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 18:14, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅. I have left Sail plan as a redlink, but feel free to redirect it to this article if there is no plan to create a new article at Sail plan. Complaints? - Ahunt (talk) 18:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

That's great. That leaves the opportunity for Sail plan to become an article. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 18:56, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, an admin has made Sail plan a redirect here to avoid breaking links, but it can always be turned into a future article instead. - Ahunt (talk) 20:05, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I have also changed the links in the two navboxes on the page to the new location. - Ahunt (talk) 20:09, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * and thanks to User:HopsonRoad is once again an article, although a different one than it was. - Ahunt (talk) 13:56, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Hang on a bit, "sailing rig" isn't even a term in our Glossary of nautical terms article, and I don't think ever has been (and I think this may have been for a reason). Also, there is WP:PLURALS which suggests this article should be "sailing rig" rather than "sailing rigs", except the article is now a sort of list of rigs. The new article Sail plan feels like an unnecessary WP:CONTENT FORK to me. Was this move proposed at Requested moves? It looks like the discussion was very brief and may not have been adequately advertised. A loose necktie (talk) 03:15, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for these comments, A loose necktie. Perhaps, if you look at the state of the article before the fork, you can suggest a more appropriate outcome. I note that the glossary includes rigging, it doesn't include rig, which it should. They are different terms. Sincerely, HopsonRoad (talk) 13:08, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I have suggested adding "rig" to the glossary at Talk:Glossary of nautical terms (M–Z). I hope that this will help lead to a resolution of the issue. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 13:59, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * If "rig" were added to the glossary, then this article could be renamed "Rig (sailing)". Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 14:19, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I would avoid moving to a new name with brackets in the title. It means that 100% of the time it will have to be pipe-linked. - Ahunt (talk) 21:57, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Despite the need for pipe linking with "Rig (sailing)", now that it is mentioned, I feel it is a better article title. Within the subject, we hear "rig" much more often than "sailing rig", so this is a case of WP:COMMONNAME. Or to put it another way, Wikipedia is meant to be for the benefit of the reader, not the editors who write it. (Yes, I find pipe linking tedious.) ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:10, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I would not oppose that title if other editors think it is the best we can do, but I would like whomever makes the move to commit to fixing all the (piped) links. - Ahunt (talk) 22:14, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, if anyone has the patience to read it all, I have made some comments to Talk:Glossary of nautical terms (M–Z) ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:10, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I find the words, "sailing rig" in only two articles: Gaff rig and Junk rig. In neither case is the combo linked to this article. So, piping doesn't seem to be an issue. Likewise, "sail plan" (the previous title of this article) is linked from only one other article: Full-rigged ship. HopsonRoad (talk) 22:44, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * There is now a definition of "rig" at Glossary of nautical terms (M–Z), which is linked to this article. I'll change the link, if we rename this article. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 11:50, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Proposed move to "Rig (sailing)"
Move to "Rig (sailing)", per the above discussion. ,, and , do you concur?

The lead sentence would become: "A sailing vessel's rig is its arrangement of masts, sails and rigging."

Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 12:06, 15 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Sure that is fine. The title Rig (sailing) is currently not in use, so anyone can make the move. - Ahunt (talk) 13:50, 15 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Agreed ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 16:09, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

hierarchical explanation
I've not been able to give as much thought to this as I would have liked, but it seems to me that the article should first explain that there are fore and aft sails and square sails, then say that there are fore and aft rigs and square rigs. So that is individual sail types first, then a collection of sails that come together to make a rig. (Obviously there are examples of just one sail in a rig, from sailboards through to Viking longships.)

I don't know if a half-formed thought is of assistance at this stage. Perhaps I am raising this a little too late in the current work. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 18:15, 16 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I think that is a good way to do it! - Ahunt (talk) 18:19, 16 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm happy with that approach! Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 18:57, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
 * In trying to implement this idea, I couldn't make it work to my satisfaction. Either only square sails are "square" and all others not, or one categorizes them by shape, which we have done. One could categorize them by whether they are attached to a stay or spar on the leading edge, but this is not what's done in the literature. HopsonRoad (talk) 13:26, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Junk rigs
The original text implies it was Chinese, when all of the sources AND the main article agree that it was adopted by them only in the 12th century. The text explaining the most likely origin is necessary for the succeeding sentences to make sense. The Chinese had to adopt it FROM somewhere. You can't start that section just by saying the "Chinese adopted the junk rig..." The rig is Southeast Asian, and thus likely Austronesian. It is used in Austronesian ships even in the earliest European depictions, not just East Asian ships. The Khmer are not seafarers, so leaving the sentence just with the Bayon temple also does not answer the question of where it likely came from. OBSIDIAN †  SOUL  13:20, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
 * all of the sources. You do not seem to want to list any of these sources. Hourani is horribly outdated and demonstrably wrong on many points – as a reference he can only be used by an expert who knows what of his content is still correct (and that is the circumstance in which he is still cited). Johnstone seems to be the source doing all the heavy lifting here and, depending on which edition you have, is either 36 or 44 years old.
 * If we have uncertainty, a high level article is not the place to go into that. A link to the appropriate article is the solution.
 * The original text (Junk rigs were in use in China by around the 12th century) makes no suggestion that the Chinese invented this rig. It just gives a date when they started using it. This is surely the best solution for a situation where there is no hard evidence and this part of the article should be relatively brief to avoid upsetting the overall balance. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 14:11, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * It was under EAST ASIA. It didn't even mention the fact that junk rigs were also in frequent use in Southeast Asian ships and were first encountered by Europeans in Southeast Asian ships. The non-European sections of this article are already gutted to the barest paragraphs as it is, deliberately removing information to "shorten it" is not only not needed, but literally obfuscating the context. There are numerous requests for broader coverage on non-European sailing vessels above, which none of you have addressed. And are instead gatekeeping the article to be only about European ships. We've all been over this before. I don't care about your PERSONAL opinions of a source. They're both reliable sources as defined by Wikipedia. -- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  14:19, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * It's not even like the likeliness of an Austronesian origin is dubious. The authors think it's likely Austronesian in origin, because it IS the most likely origin. It has fore-and-aft precursors in Southeast Asia. It is functionally just a tanja ("lugsail") sail with more "spars". The oldest depiction is in Southeast Asia with a Southeast Asian ship design (Chinese ships don't have keels). It is used throughout Southeast Asia. Even the name was derived from Malay. In contrast there are no precursors in Chinese ships, they never had a history of preceding fore-and-aft sails. All depictions of Chinese ships prior to the 12th century use simple square sails. And it's not like China has a ton of seafaring neighbors that it could have borrowed it from either. If it was dubious, then yes, it should be removed. But it's not. It's sourced, and it gives the entire section much-needed CONTEXT.-- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  15:06, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Hi Obsidian Soul|. My edit to "Shorten text. Remove speculative material. Add cn templates to uncited paragraphs." was not to obfuscate (which is an imputed motive where we only should discuss results here), but because the text used "may" and "is unclear, but is also likely...", which denote speculation by the source authors. These I deleted. We should be reporting on consensus opinions from the cited authorities, not on speculation.


 * I changed the structure of a sentence, which read, "which depicts..., which identifies it..." to the less awkward "which shows..., and identifies it...".


 * Sincerely, HopsonRoad (talk) 21:40, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * It is an academic opinion published in a scientific paper, which differs from mere speculation. We are just Wikipedia editors, not academic peer reviewers. The current consensus is that junk rigs are not originally Chinese, which necessitates that academic opinion. Nor is it exclusively Chinese, which is why it's important not to imply either of those points. Removing what experts think, and thus the academic context, only muddles the subject.


 * Not to mention the added confusion of the conflation of terms in modern usage versus historical usage. In modern times, we use "junk" to mean the Chinese chuán with fully battened sails. When historically, the term "junk" originally referred to the ocean-going Southeast Asian djong; and the original chuán were not junk-rigged nor capable of sailing the high seas.-- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  22:41, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for that, . I have no problem with established consensus. It's just that the words "may" and "unclear" don't suggest consensus. If there is consensus, then I suggest that those words shouldn't be in the text. Sincerely, HopsonRoad (talk) 23:49, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Where are you getting all of that? There is no policy in Wikipedia that says we can only include consensus. The consensus is that junk rigs are NOT Chinese. A major academic opinion is that they are Southeast Asian (i.e. Austronesian) in origin. I have no idea where you got the notion that a scientific consensus can't have "may" or "unclear" either, you seem to be conflating it with the layman's definition. But that's irrelevant to this discussion.


 * WP:YESPOV: As such, the neutral point of view does not mean the exclusion of certain points of view; rather, it means including all verifiable points of view which have sufficient due weight.-- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  00:10, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I concur with the quote on NPOV. My concern is that the information presented is undermined by those words. If the sources report on something with reasonable confidence, then no "may" or "unclear" should be needed in the article's text. Of course, different sources may express opposing views with reasonable confidence in their point of view. In this instance, the opposing views should be given their due weight. HopsonRoad (talk) 00:27, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * How is it undermined? It gives context to the statement that junk rigs were adopted by the Chinese from another culture (and that they were using square sails prior to its introduction) by answering which culture it likely originated from. It is, again, published academic opinions by experts on the subject and provides a significant viewpoint that must be included given its prominence. Just because it uses terms like "may" and "likely" doesn't in any way remove the credibility of the authors in stating their opinions, because it is backed by their expertise (of which we, mere Wikipedia editors, are in no position to contest). All of these are discussed in the main article.


 * You don't "balance" something by automatically mentioning opposing views (WP:FALSEBALANCE). The opposing viewpoint (that junk rigs are indigenous inventions of the Chinese) is not supported by anyone really prominent. In fact, I don't know of any, aside from the debates on the identity of early ship depictions (which is a different matter entirely).-- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  01:33, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree completely with what you've just written, nor have I ever had a contrary view. It's not the validity of the information that is at question, it's just the choice of words in paraphrasing it in the article. I'd be comfortable with, "Whether a ship depicted in Borobudur (c. 9th century) of Indonesia carries a junk sail is subject to dispute." (This wording is a stand-in for contrary points of view.) And also, "Historians, Johnstone, Hourani, and Needham, suggest an Indonesian/Austronesian origin of the rig." (This wording suggests a degree of confidence in what's described, on the part of the source authors, at the level of reasonable probability, whereas "may" suggests only the possibility of what's described.) Sincerely, HopsonRoad (talk) 13:37, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The Borobudur sentence can be removed without harm. It's a controversial interpretation that does not have wide acceptance. I only included it because it was in the main article. I agree that rewording it to use "suggest" sounds better, while still adhering to WP:YESPOV's requirement that opinions must not be stated as facts and must be attributed.


 * I have made the changes suggested. Please feel free to tweak it if needed. Cheers.-- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  16:07, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

The issues that I have with the article providing coverage of the origins of junk rig include the absence of any historical content about the other rig types mentioned in the article. The issue of whether or not the attribution to an Austronesian origin is supported by quality sources is subsidiary to this.

Consider how much longer the article would need to be if each rig type mentioned had its historical origins explored. The article would be much larger in size, but would only be summarising content that is much better handled in each rig's own article. Surely this article is the place for the common characteristics of each rig, not the history. As it happens, junk rig has a number of specific characteristics, both in its traditional form and modern versions. Coverage of that is surely the most useful way of using the space available to this subject. (Interestingly, one of the characteristics of junk rig is suggestive that it was developed with mat sails – as opposed to cloth sails – due to the lower tensile strength of mat versus cloth. This would fit with Austronesian development. That, however, is probably for the main article.)
 * You mean like the original text you deleted from this article a while back for similar vague reasons? LOL -- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  04:50, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

It is worth adding that Hourani is definitely not an RS because it is an outdated source. It was written in 1951. The intervening 73 years have seen an enormous amount of progress in this field. See WP:OLDSOURCES where the point is made that the editor should check that older sources have not been superseded. This is not a personal opinion, it is from one of the major content guidelines in Wikipedia. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 16:24, 20 May 2024 (UTC)


 * For the last time, that is not your call to make. The vast majority of science (especially archaeology and history) do not have hard historical evidence and are built on informed opinions by experts using indirect evidence. They're called hypotheses. Unless you have authors specifically saying Hourani's opinions on this topic are wrong, then it has not been superseded. Just because it's old does not mean it is not accepted. I won't be drawn into your pseudo-peer-reviewing nonsense again. --  OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  16:37, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Referring to Hourani not being an RS – it is exactly the call of any editor to take the view that a source is outdated and should not be used. There are plenty of points made by Hourani that are now wrong, because maritime history has moved on from 1951. You only need to sit down with Hourani's text and go through it point by point to find some of them. The reason it is not an RS whilst some of the content is still good to use is because it is not the call of a Wikipedia editor as to which ones those are. Hence we cannot use it as a source whilst a recognised maritime historian who would be an RS on their own can.
 * No it is not. I once again, ask you to provide me the published paper which specifically says Hourani's point in that specific circumstance is incorrect. That is how you determine a source has been superseded, not by an arbitrary call that 1951 is "too old". You don't have that. Instead, we have at least two other authors AGREEING with him, and multiple others still citing him. WP:REPUTABLE: This means that we publish only the analysis, views, and opinions of reliable authors, and not those of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves-- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  03:28, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The issue of whether or not Hourani is an RS. Hourani's fundamental error is in the origin of the lateen rig – he thought it originated with Arab seafarers and discusses this at some length in his relatively short book. He even goes so far as to say that The typical sail of the Arabs is the lateen, in fact it is the only sail used by them, now or at any recorded time in the past... [bold added]. We now know that Arab seafarers used square sails in the first millennium AD – to the extent that the Jewel of Muscat was unhesitatingly rigged that way. A paper that covers the modern thinking on the origin of lateen rig is Julian Whitewright (2009) The Mediterranean Lateen Sail in Late Antiquity, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 38:1, 97-104, DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-9270.2008.00213.x Here you will find remarks like Such theories have been superseded by unequivocal depictions of lateen/settee-rigged Mediterranean sailing vessels which pre-date the Arab invasion. This is directed at a list of historians which includes Hourani. Even the 1994 reprint, with notes, of Hourani explains that he is wrong on this point. Hourani's book is a little over 100 pages long. A great deal of it consists of his erroneous discussion of the origin of lateen. Therefore a Wikipedia editor who uses it has used WP:OR to determine whether or not the relevant section is outdated or not. That means it is not an RS. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 19:23, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Looking at Hourani, you might want to make clear where exactly he states that junk rig had an Austronesian origin. He does not appear to mention it. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 19:23, 21 May 2024 (UTC)


 * These are summaries copied from the main Junk rig article. I wrote the original sentence in Junk rig 5 years ago, and in that version, I only specifically said Johnstone.
 * Hourani was added by User:Verosaurus. I do not have access to the book, so I can not help find the page attribution. If it turns out he did not mention it, then it should be removed. I guess your nitpicking did turn out something valid this time.
 * Regardless, your rationale for dismissing Hourani as completely non-RS based on the fact that you personally disagree with one of his views that has been superseded only makes it all the more obvious how deeply you really don't seem to understand our limitations as Wikipedia editors. Just because one of his views has now been superseded does not blanket-label an author as non-RS. We can not use Hourani for lateen topics, sure. But all the other views are by a case by case basis. The fact remains that his work meets the WP:RS requirements, he is a prominent historian with all the academic credentials. We even have an article on him: George Hourani.
 * How many times must I repeat that WE are not specialists. We're just people on the internet with far too much free time. Even if you're a published author in your private life, that still does not make you a peer reviewer here.
 * You have a habit of removing sources you don't like with exactly this kind of rationale. When you can't find another reliable source that disagree with a specific point, you instead attack the author. Your unwarranted removal of Schaffer for example is based on a peer review that does not specifically contest the assertion being sourced, instead just generally saying that she has factual errors and her coverage is restricted primarily to Java. That is a blatant disregard for WP:VERIFYOR. These kinds of source removals completely bury the original attribution of text in the articles as well, making it hard to backtrack to what exactly the text was originally sourced to.
 * It's exhausting interacting with you.-- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  06:06, 23 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I also disagree with your statements about informed opinions using indirect evidence. A nautical archaeologist who has obtained a good dendrochronological date for a wreck site would certainly argue against that (there are many important wreck sites where the build date can be ascertained to within two or three years), as would many others with hard and fast evidence on other aspects (such as the evidence for the use of windmill driven sawmills being used to build VOC ships from a wreck off Australia, or evidence of Black Sea and Mediterranean Classical period trade routes from amphorae types). History especially has moved on from its relatively unscientific era, making this change in the 1980s (Devine's The Great Highland Famine is an example of the new analytical approach to history, debunking previous work that was to a lower level of precision). Many aspects of history now have the same level of proof as, say, biomedical sciences that give us modern drugs. I appreciate that Obsidian Soul's area of interest has much poorer archaeological and iconographic evidence than some other parts of the world. But that is not a reason to misunderstand how archaeology and maritime history work nowadays, nor to take it out on other editors. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 20:38, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * That nautical archaeologist would then be using indirect evidence to ascertain the origin of a ship. Because there is no direct evidence like records or a plaque that says the ship was built on this date by whom and where. Like the vast majority of history and archaeology. The same thing with the conclusions that the junk rig is Austronesian based on indirect evidence that Austronesians have a precursor tanja rig which is functionally the same, while the Chinese used square rigs until abruptly switching to junk rigs at the exact time they started sailing to SE Asia; that the Chinese copied other maritime technologies from contact with Austronesian ships; that the oldest depiction of a junk rig is from a (non-seafaring) Khmer temple neighboring Austronesian seafaring Champa and Srivijaya and the depiction is a boat with clear Austronesian elements that Chinese ships do not use; and the fact that only Austronesians are the nearest seafaring neighbors of the Chinese. And so on. WP:REPUTABLE: This means that we publish only the analysis, views, and opinions of reliable authors, and not those of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves
 * You hilariously think we're the experts. Earth to WP:BOISE, we are just Wikipedia editors. -- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  03:28, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * As for the history bit. That existed before me. Except it was incomplete, misleading, and placed in an entirely wrong subheading. Now I've corrected it, suddenly, you don't want it mentioned. The origin of the rig is essential to categorizing and discussing it. Which is why (and I've said it before), I have always objected to how this supposedly overview article just groups everything under rigs from the European Age of Sail due to inherent bias. If I hadn't added Austronesian traditions here before, it wouldn't be here. As such, Arab, Indian, Egyptian, etc. traditions are still pointedly unrepresented or coopted under the European/American heading.-- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  16:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)


 * It doesn't matter who introduced the history bit. For the article to work well, my view is that the history is better handled by the individual rig type articles. Otherwise this article would be overwhelmed by too many competing subjects. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 20:38, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Has that happened? Is it "overwhelmed"? No. Instead, it's one of the least comprehensive supposedly "high-level" article I have ever read. You can almost retitle it with just "European rigs", that's how utterly limited the coverage is, belying its supposed scope.-- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  03:28, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The issue is that if all the rig types had history sections, the article would be overwhelmed by them. Focus on the word if. ThoughtIdRetired TIR 19:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Let me try: If someone wrote better coverage on non-European ships that should have been included in this GENERAL OVERVIEW of an article, we'd have a better article. How far will you move the goalposts this time, I wonder. Meh. I'm out. -- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  06:06, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Parallel structure?
Picking up on the above discussion about including histories of rigs, I note that the article is written differently, both in structure and in style, in the "European and American vessels" section, compared with the "Austronesian and Asian vessels" section. The European/American section covers types of vessels and rig configurations. The Austronesian/Asian section emphasizes history and evolution more strongly than configuration. Whether or not one adds history to the E/A section, the A/A section should have descriptions of types of vessels and configurations of rigs in a roughly parallel structure and similar style as the E/A section. Drawing from sources in the uncited passages, should help provide improved parallel structure and style. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 02:30, 21 May 2024 (UTC)


 * You mean like the more detailed discussions on different crab claw and tanja configurations that you all split off to its own article because it wasn't European and ThoughtIRetired thought he had the authority to simply remove sources he doesn't like? Yeah I wish this overview article on rigs covered those. -- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  04:57, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Actually, yes, . The material in that section would make for more parallel text.
 * I'm sorry that you had an impression on the split being "because [the topic] wasn't European". My thinking was that the topic was substantial and obviously worthy of its own article, linked to the one whence it was split. The original article, Sail plan, was a hodgepodge of material that didn't reflect the title of the article, whence came the move to Rig (sailing).
 * From where I sit, your discussions on sources with are in WP:GOOD FAITH on both your parts. Since I'm unfamiliar with those sources, it's hard for me to contribute and propose a solution satisfactory to both of you.
 * Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 12:48, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm just tired of constantly clashing with him on every edit on these nautical articles. And it always devolves into pointless nitpicking. -- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  15:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * It's probably mutual! There must be a way to break that cycle.
 * Sometimes, it's a matter of understanding the other editor's POV more clearly. One could say, e.g., "Do I understand you to mean...?" or "Would the following text be satisfactory: ...?" or "What would you suggest the text should say?". This approach avoids questioning the motives of the other editor and focuses on the text that should result from the discussion.
 * Just some thoughts. Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 18:55, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Gallery format
Hi, I was about to harmonize the gallery formats, when I realized that you were editing. I was going to use the following format, which is used in the galleries above your edits:

IMO, this format makes better use of the page by removing the white space from around the images. Perhaps you could take this on.

Cheers, HopsonRoad (talk) 12:25, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh sorry, I was transferring part of the text to expand Austronesian vessels. I didn't realize you were editing. I'll leave you to it, I need to eat dinner anyway, heh.-- OBSIDIAN  †  SOUL  12:29, 22 May 2024 (UTC)