If you're not an experienced sailor with a clear vision of the sail wardrobe you want to work with, the type of rig that will work best for your budget, and the best layout for the control systems; then this article points out some of the advantages and disadvantages of the various options and it presents a structured process for selecting the equipment and planning a deck layout to make it all work seamlessly.

While the rig, sails and control systems can each be considered in a category of their own and manufactured or supplied by a specialist working in just that category, the integration of the three elements and clear communication is critical to a successful meeting of the technologies.

This can only be achieved with planning and management that must be carried out by the owner, a builder working on your behalf, or a specialist who understands importance of ensuring that design, manufacturing, and equipment selection needs to be carefully  integrated and coordinated.

Whether your'e setting up a new boat or reinvigorating an older one it's important to visualise the rig, sails and deck hardware as three interactive systems with the features of each having implications for the design and specification of the other two.

How much performance do you want as opposed to ease of handling, affordability, long life and simplicity? Do you expect to add more sails to the wardrobe over time? These are the factors that will affect the sails you purchase. Start out by making decisions about these factors and talk them though with your sailmaker.

1. Mainsail.

The mainsail is pretty straight forward, and apart from possibly adjusting the mast height the main thing to consider is the width of the head or square top. Wider is more powerful but requires a robust sheeting system to achieve good leech tension and it can take more effort to raise and lower the main. 

The ideal basic setup if the budget and deck arrangement allow is a three headsail arrangement not including the storm jib.

1. A working headsail tacked to the bow, most commonly a self tacking jib. For a little more power the working headsail can be sheeted on separate tracks either side and slightly aft of the mast. For the self tacking system the headsail sheet leads back to the cockpit after going forward on the deck close to the tack point, or leading up the mast, back to the deck and then aft to the cockpit. If the sheet is to go up the mast this needs to be communicated to the rigging company in the design phase.

2. Screecher or Code Zero

This sail fits the range between a genoa and spinnaker and in recent years has become popular as an upwind sail on multihulls. Screachers and Code Sails can do the same thing. The name Screacher is derived from combining reacher and spinnaker, so they were generally intended as downwind and reaching sails, as were Code sails which are still regarded as reaching sails on monohulls, typically with a mid girth measuring between 50% and 75% of foot length.

3. Gennaker or Asymmetric Spinnaker.

This sail maximises downwind performance, especially in light air and gains maximum area by being sheeted outside the shroud and as far aft on the deck as possible. On a cruising boat the tack point might be the same point used for the Code Zero. On a high performance boat it is more likely to be set from the tip of a long bow pole. A variety of equipment can be deployed to make it easy to raise and lower the gennaker including furlers and snuffers of various types. If it is set on a furler and has a structured luff then its a gennaker, not a spinnaker.

4. Asymmetric Spinnaker

A free flying headsail that is designed for downwind angles and does not have a structured luff or furling gear. It generally requires a couple of fit crew members to deploy and retrieve the sail so is not a common addition to a cruising wardrobe.

This is not an easy one to pull apart. Not so much because it's complicated but more because the advantages of one rig type over another are difficult to quantify and whichever way you go there will be trade-offs.

It involves weight saving, efficiency of flow over the sails, how much control you have over the shape of your main, your budget, your budget, your budget, and a whole lot of personal opinion that is not always easy to back up with science.

In theory a rotating wing section lines up the mast profile with the curvature of the luff on the lee side of the main, and by all logic of fluid dynamics this should increase lift. It almost certainly does on high performance multihulls. On cruising boats; that is boats with a lower power to weight ratio there may be a performance benefit as well but in my opinion it has often been overstated.

The fact that the OMR governing committee recently revised downward the handicap factor on rotating wing masts would seem to confirm this; however it is a difficult thing to quantify where a boat's performance is influenced by so many other factors.

So in making the decision whether to rotate or not we need to look at the other factors in effect.

• Because the mast rotates the halyards need to be cleated on the mast. If they are lead to the deck they need to pass through the foot of the mast rather than exit out the side as this will inhibit rotation. Another option that is sometimes employed on trailer boats is to exit the halyard out the side of the mast, tension it using a deck mounted winch and then cleat it off on the mast rather than on the deck. However this makes it complicated to adjust tension while sailing and requires additional rope.

At right: detail of the mast plate and ball on trimaran Venom

The carbon rig is lighter and stiffer, and significantly more expensive. If you're serious about racing and have a light boat and an ample budget then the carbon rig is probably a no brainer. But even once you've chosen to go carbon it's not that simple.

There are different methods for making carbon masts, different grades of carbon, all with their individual strength characteristics, and different ways of supporting the mast that affect the weight and the price. This is a field for specialists.

My advice: If you're seriously considering a carbon rig choose one or two of the well established carbon rig manufacturers who have plenty of experience with your type of boat (especially size range) and start the discussion.

Just because you decide to rotate doesn't mean you have to use a wing section, although logically a wing will provide maximum gain from the ability to rotate. A conventional mast profile will still provide some benefit when rotated, it will be lighter and less expensive, and it will be less detrimental if you simply decide to lock it off to prevent it from rotating while you are cruising.

One benefit of the rotating mast, quite apart from the performance factor, is that when you are raising and lowering the main the mast will tend to remain head to wind even though the boat is swinging in the breeze. This makes it easier to get the main up and down, an important factor with the large square tops we commonly deploy in our rigs these days.

At right; Mast spanner and gooseneck on trimaran Venom. Mast is partially rotated in this shot.

There's multitude of ways to support the rig sideways and every rigging company has their own methods of engineering the rig support to complement the standard sections they have available, or are able to manufacture.

The sail plan in combination with other factors; like whether the rig is rotating or not will be important factors in determining the number and the length of spreaders and whether the rig needs lowers or mast head support for the gennaker.

The ideal solution for the boat owner is to work with a rigging company and a sail maker who regularly work in cooperation with each other. This is not essential but mutual understanding and experience can help to streamline the process of setting up a successful sail and rig combination.

At Right; Single spreader carbon rig on trimaran Venom.  

You really can't finalise your sail plan without making decisions about where you're going to tack the gennaker and asymmetic spinnakers if you're going to have them. These images help to demonstrate why.

Above we have a really neat setup with an extendable pole designed and built by Alan Carwardine for his Stealth 42 cat Coconut.

Don't try this at home . It's fairly complex to build but Al is a master at rigging details and this is not his first attempt. The pole mostly lives inside the tube and it can pulled out to fly the asymmetrics. 

1. Figure how much you are investing in your boat and how much you expect it to weigh.

2. Figure out how much you are saving in weight by selecting one option over another, and note the cost of the weight saving. 

3. Compare the percentage of weight saved to the percentage of additional cost.

Example: You are investing 400k in your boat. It's going to weigh 4 tonnes at launch

The basic rig cost is 20k and the weight is 200kg  . 

The expensive rig option cost is 30k and the weight is 150kg

So you're spending an extra 10k which is 2.5% of your investment.

And you're saving 50kg which is 1.25% of your total weight.

This in itself may not give you the answer you are looking for because there are many factors apart from the cost and weight but its a simple way of assessing the cost of weight saving for all kinds of materials and equipment right through the boat.

Once you've determined the preferred sail and rig plan the decision making process for the arrangement of the deck equipment becomes pretty straight forward.

The are three big decision points in the deck plan that basically set the scene for the equipment you will need and where to locate it. 

1. The first is how many halliards and reefing lines you wish to lead back to the cockpit, if any. This basically boils down to whether you are happy to cleat halliards and reefing lines on the mast or whether you prefer lines to come back to the cockpit so you don't have to go forward to change sails or put in a reef.

2. The second is the tack positions for the headsails, Whether you need a long bow pole, either permanently fixed or retractable. This decision relates back to the selection of headsails, and if you are going to have an asymmetric downwind sail as well as a Code Zero then you will most likely require a reasonably long bow pole.

3. The third decision is whether to have the working headsail sheeting to a self tacking track, and if it is; whether the sheet will go up the mast and back to the deck and aft to the cockpit, or go forward to the tack point before returning to the cockpit.

Bringing lines aft to the cockpit is convenient, especially if you are doing a lot of short handed or single handed sailing. Cleating them off on the mast saves purchasing additional hardware, reduces friction in the system and minimises weight by reducing the line lengths and hardware requirements. Cleating lines on the mast is more attractive option if you have, or are setting up for a rotating rig, but beware of positioning winches on the mast where they can catch genoa sheets when tacking. Some sail makers I know place an outright ban on winches on the mast for this reason.

Leading sheets and halliards down to deck level is a complication best avoided. Most cruising cats have done away with the genoa sheeted to the cabin top and instead have a self tacking track forward of the mast for the jib and a code zero sheeted to the deck beside the cabin.

Never mount manual winches above waist height or in a position that requires awkward body posture.