Modern gaffers
Peter Poland tracks the development of modern British gaff riggers
Peter Poland tracks the development of modern British gaff riggers
Ahundred years ago, the winner of the America’s Cup was a Herreshoff-designed 106ft gaffer weighing in at around 100 tons. Both the British challenger and the American defender – state of the art racers in their day – were powered by gaff rigs. The next America’s Cup is to be contested in 2021 in New Zealand aboard keel-less 75ft monohulls with deck-hugging sails, flying on huge hydrofoils that can hit 50 knots! Which left me wondering why so many popular modern smaller cruisers have ignored progress, preferring gaff rigs to the Bermudan rigs that succeeded them.
“The gaff still has a lot going for it,” says Andrew Wolstenholme, a leading designer of modern gaffers.
“And with exotic new materials now available, it can be even better and offer even more advantages to modern sailors than it ever did in the past.”
The origins of the gaff rig stretch back over many centuries. It evolved from the ubiquitous spritsail rig, which in turn traces its roots back to lugsail and squaresail rigs before it.
The lugsail attaches to a spar that is hoisted up the mast at an angle, with some of the spar and sail protruding ahead of the mast. As a result, it has a defined ‘soft leading edge’ that helps the boat sail upwind. The lugsail rig became commonplace on coastal fishing and cargo boats that had to be manoeuvrable and able to sail to windward.
Modern wooden and GRP dinghies with
lugsail rigs are still around. Small (11ft 3in) scows based in Keyhaven, Lymington, Christchurch, Chichester harbour and Bembridge race in large fleets and also make splendid training boats. You’ll often see them with a grandparent at the helm teaching a grandchild the ropes. The considerably larger and high tech Nigel Irens-designed Romilly (22ft) and Roxane (30ft) yawls also carry lugsails and make great coastal cruisers.
From antiquity
Spritsails are said to have first appeared on Greek and Roman vessels from around the 2nd century BC. As this rig evolved, the sail was attached vertically to the mast and controlled with a spar (or sprit) stretching from the mast to the peak of the sail (as opposed to a yard or lug that rotated around the mast). Much later the spritsail rig became a regular sight on British coastal waters as Thames Barges plied their trade.
Unlike gaffers and the occasional lugsail dinghy, boats with spritsails are rarely seen today. Apart, that is, from the hundreds of thousands of 2.34m bluff-bowed dinghies with spritsails in which children around the world learn to sail and race single-handed. Where would sailing schools be without the mighty Optimist, designed in 1947 in America by Clark Mills?
His local Optimist Service Club ran a soap box derby then suggested a low-cost equivalent for young people to sail; so Mills designed an easy-to-build pram dinghy. And the rest is history. The Optimist dinghy (named after the club) with its jaunty little spritsail evolved into a One Design class and is now sailed in over 120 countries.
British designer Andrew Wolstenholme has been a leader in the field of modern gaff-rigged yachts for many years, so I asked him what gaffers had to offer, apart from their undisputed charm and looks. He replied: “It’s partly about the rig and partly about the hull and foil design. The Bermudan rig is more efficient upwind because of its higher aspect ratio and cleaner aerodynamics and this is generally combined with a more performance oriented hull form. The lower aspect ratio gaff rig is, however, more efficient off the wind and is rarely seen with a spinnaker to boost offwind performance.
“So as Bermudan superseded gaff, development in gaff rig and the hulls under it largely ceased and became ‘traditional’ ... but gaff rig has lots to offer the modern sailor and there is no logic in not taking advantage of modern materials and developments.
“The Dutch have done as much as any to advance gaff rig (they need to raise and lower masts for the numerous bridges so their many small half-deckers favour gaff). These rigs sometimes use bolt-ropes to attach the head of the sail to the gaff to reduce windage and avoid overengineering spar fittings thus minimising weight aloft. As with any design exercise, it’s about prioritising the design parameters and coming up with the most effective solution for a particular brief.”
‘The gaff still has a lot going for it. With exotic new materials it can offer even more’
One major recent advance has been the use of carbon fibre spars in gaff rigs. Wolstenholme agrees with fellow designer Nigel Irens (nigelirens.com) that carbon is well suited to modern gaffers. Irens’s beautiful 63ft Maggie B gaff-rigged schooner featured carbon spars, as did his Roxane and Romilly lugsail cruisers. Designer Simon Rogers (rogersyachtdesign.com) also specified carbon fibre spars for the head-turning high performance 38ft Alice lll gaff-rigged ketch.
Simple staying
Wolstenholme says a Bermudan rig – with its complex lateral staying – needs a mast that is stiffer fore and aft; so this ends up being oval in section. The staying on a gaff rig, however, is far simpler. So a ‘cylindrical’ section does the job well and is also more economical, being better suited to carbon fibre than complicated oval sections.
When I asked Wolstenholme how his recent Crabber 24 design differed from earlier Cornish Crabbers he said the 24 had to be very much in the ‘Crabber idiom’ and so he “consciously only pushed things so far. Aesthetically I tried to make her as sweet as I could, and I did push for the decent length cockpit. Otherwise it was about getting her into Cat. B while still being light enough to trail home at the end of the season – that’s where the carbon mast came in.”
To get more insight into the new Crabbers, I asked Cornish Crabbers MD Peter Thomas whether this new Wolstenholme-designed 24 sailed differently to previous designs and how the carbon mast performed.
Thomas replied that he was constantly looking at ways of improving performance in terms of the handling and general use of the boats, adding that the carbon rig was introduced to keep the boat weight down while still achieving RCD Category B status. He went on to say: “The real benefit to the customer has been the ease of mast raising and the low maintenance. We have kept the boom and gaff in sitka spruce because they look fantastic! The gaff needs a bit of weight to help it do it’s job when it comes to taking the mainsail down and – along with the boom – it spends most of the time protected from the elements under the boom cover.”
When I asked whether the new 24 sailed better than earlier Crabbers, Thomas replied: “I like to think our recent designs do sail better but there are many ways in which they achieve this. For our owners it is not really about percentages of pointing ability and boat speed but more about a mixture of manoeuvrability, shallow draught and stability.
“We started the development process with our Crabber 26 [designed by his father David Thomas] that has Cat B stability and 6ft 2in headroom with only 2ft 6in of draught. I can’t think of another boat that has achieved that combination of characteristics... and that was with a timber mast!
“More recently the Shrimper 21 has benefitted from improved manoeuvrability due to a shortening of the keel aft. A gap between the keel and the rudder makes her easier to manoeuvre under power and she tacks much quicker. All great
‘One major recent advance has been the use of carbon fibre spars’
improvements. [A carbon fibre mast is also now an option]
“Andrew’s latest Crabber 24 design is a masterpiece incorporating all these new bits with the addition of a carbon rig. At 2,200kg she is the same weight as our older Crabber 22 model and does everything better!”
As a parting shot, I asked Thomas if there were any other notable improvements on new Crabbers. He replied that the other recent rig change has been a new flexible furling system, explaining that: “historically the crabbers had jibs with wire luffed furling gear because it’s important to be able to lift the bowsprit when in expensive UK marinas.
“The Aero Luffspar reefing system incorporates a GRP tube with spiralling carbon fibre strands on the outer layer giving torsional strength. It sits inside the jib luff. This tube rotates around the wire in the system and makes it bendy enough to lift the bowsprit while the jib is still attached. These are now standard on all our boats and we can’t make them quick enough for those looking for replacements on their older Crabbers!”
Other modern gaffers
Andrew Wolstenholme has designed a wide variety of gaff-rigged GRP yachts in recent years; several being built by Charlie Ward before Neil Thompson Boats took over the business. This range includes Wolstenholme’s Norfolk Urchin dinghy (13ft/3.96m), Norfolk Gypsy (20ft/6.10m) and Norfolk Smuggler (25ft/7.62m).
Like most modern gaffers, the Gypsy and Smuggler have high-peak gaffs that are near-vertical; whereas the traditional gaff rig has a four-cornered mainsail with a gaff that sets less vertically, allowing space for a topsail.
Ward explained that the high-peaked mainsail enables simple adjustment of sail shape. Ease the peak halyard and the sail shape becomes fuller and more powerful in lighter airs; or harden it and the sail shape can be flattened to de-power the rig in stronger winds.
He went on to point out further advantages of the modern high-peak rig. Because the peak of the gaff extends well above the masthead, the mast is relatively short. This reduces weight aloft and makes for easy mast lowering. And, importantly for trailer-sailing the Norfolk range, it enables the mast to be stowed within the length of the boat without removing it from the tabernacle and moving it forward for trailing.
The high peaked mainsail also enables the vessel to give impressive upwind performance without the need to set a topsail in lighter airs. And slab reefing is easy to operate with reefing lines and mainsail halyards leading aft into the cockpit.
Going for carbon
When I asked him about the merits of carbon spars, Ward replied: “I believe at least one Norfolk Gypsy has been rigged with a full set of carbon fibre spars. These have proved to be a great success, enabling easy mast lowering for the owner who has to pass under a bridge to go to and from sailing.
“An added advantage is the considerable weight reduction compared to wooden spars; which improves the yacht’s stability because there’s far less weight aloft.”
Ward’s own 45ft Thames Barge-style Wolstenholme-designed Juno (run as a charter boat: sailingbargejuno.co.uk) also has a new carbon fibre topmast. He said it’s “a massive advantage in terms of weight aloft.”
Mike McNamara (mcnamara-sails.co.uk) – championship-winning dinghy sailmaker and acknowledged expert at making gaff-rig sails – agrees, saying: “Using carbon spars has made a huge difference especially here on the Broads where raising and lowering spars is the norm. Counter balance weights or complicated shock cord tensioners are not needed and so, as the rig is lighter, the heeling moment is also reduced.”
Wolstenholme’s all new trailer-sailer the Kite (21ft ex bowsprit) illustrates the many benefits that a modern gaff rig can offer.
After a plywood prototype proved just how well this attractive yacht performs, Demon Yachts (demonyachts.co.uk) is now producing a GRP version. Thanks to sophisticated mouldings with multi axial glass and infused vinylester resin over a closed cell foam core, the new Kite is robust and light. Her weight of 1,650lb/750kg, combined with a plate-up draught of just 10in/0.25m, makes launching, recovery and trailing simple. Add a modern NACA section rudder and centreboard and sleek hard chine hull lines to the equation and it’s easy to see why the Kite sails so well.
The carbon fibre spars (painted white) also reduce weight aloft and make light work of rigging the boat.
Olympic Flying Dutchman silver medallist
‘Carbon spars improve a yacht’s stability because there’s far less weight aloft’
Keith Musto bought an early GRP Kite and Musto says “Weight is king when it comes to performance and ease of handling ashore. This fact, combined with hull stability, a massive cockpit and good cabin layout, makes Kite a great boat to cruise or race. The Torqeedo electric outboard is light and easy to fit and store in a cockpit locker. Demon Yachts are a quality builder. This, coupled with Andrew Wolstenholme’s experienced design ability, offers a modern take on a boat worthy of its competitive price tag [£31,000].”
High performance gaffer
This year Musto raced his Kite on the river Crouch off an IRC rating of 0.829 and has won some races against local cruiserracers ranging from 25ft to 40ft. Like sailmaker McNamara, he thinks the Kite could make a great One Design class adding: “Kite is a fun boat, simple to manage and handle, easy to transport behind a family saloon car. Lots of people have admired her looks and performance. A bit of a bandit some say!”
The Association for Gaff Rig Sailing (OGA) recently launched another exciting new gaff-rigged boat. OGA president Patrick Vyvyan-Robinson told me “The OGA Dinghy (ogadinghy.org.uk) was designed by Andrew Wolstenholme for sailors of all ages from beginners to experienced sailors who admire and enjoy traditional gaff-rig sailing. The OGA has seen an increase in interest in small boats and we hope that the Dinghy, which can be built at home, will particularly appeal to young sailors.
“The versatile design allows for sailing, sculling, rowing or an outboard. Several boats have been completed and more are in being built around our coast from Northumberland to the West Country.”
With an overall length of 13ft 6in/4.11m and beam of 5ft 3in/1.6m the OGA says this new dinghy is a ‘comfortable size for building at home in the garage, is easy to tow behind a small car and yet is large enough for family sailing. The single chine hull form follows on from the popular dinghies of the 1950s and ‘60s... but with a more classic appearance and a sweeping sheer and raked transom.
“Construction is a variation of stitch-and-tape, using CNC-cut components. With simplicity of build in mind, and also functionality, she has a lowered deck in the same style as the Mirror Dinghy, which is useful for lessening the risk of lines going overboard and providing more sprawling space for children. The versatile design allows for sailing, rowing, sculling or outboard motor.”
Now that the 10ft 9in/3.28m Mirror Dinghy (10ft 9in) comes in a new GRP Mk3 version with a Bermudan rig and spinnaker that outdates the earlier gunter-rigged versions, there could be a big gap in the market for the OGA’s versatile new ‘gaffer’.