Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the water, on ice (iceboat) or on land over a chosen course, which is often part of a larger plan of navigation.
Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats by using five essential controls:
A point of sail is a sailing craft's direction of travel under sail in relation to the true wind direction over the surface.
A jibe (US) or gybe (Britain) is a sailing maneuver whereby a sailing craft reaching downwind turns its stern through the wind, which then exerts its force from the opposite side of the vessel. It stands in contrast with tacking, whereby the sailing craft turns its bow through the wind.
A spinnaker is a sail designed specifically for sailing off the wind on courses between a reach to downwind. Spinnakers are constructed of lightweight fabric, usually nylon, and are often brightly colored. They may be designed to perform best as either a reaching or a running spinnaker, by the shaping of the panels and seams. They are attached at only three points and said to be flown.
The 49er and 49er FX is a two-handed skiff-type high-performance sailing dinghy. The two crew work on different roles with the helm making many tactical decisions, as well as steering, and the crew doing most of the sail control. Both of the crew are equipped with their own trapeze and sailing is done while cantilevered over the water to the fullest extent to balance against the sails.
Tacking or coming about is a sailing maneuver by which a sailing craft, whose next destination is into the wind, turns its bow toward and through the wind so that the direction from which the wind blows changes from one side of the boat to the other, allowing progress in the desired direction. Sailing vessels are unable to sail higher than a certain angle towards the wind, so "beating to windward" in a zig-zag fashion with a series of tacking maneuvers, allows a vessel to sail towards a destination that is closer to the wind than the vessel can sail directly.
The Musto Skiff is a single-handed sailing skiff with a length of 4.55 m. It features a trapeze, asymmetrical spinnaker, wings and low weight and achieves speeds of over 20 knots, which makes it one of the fastest single-handed sailing boats.
A skiff is any of a variety of essentially unrelated styles of small boats, usually propelled by sails or oars. Traditionally, these are coastal craft or river craft used for work, leisure, as a utility craft, and for fishing, and have a one-person or small crew. Sailing skiffs have developed into high performance competitive classes. Many of today's skiff classes are based in Australia and New Zealand in the form of 12 ft (3.66 m), 13 ft (3.96 m), 16 ft (4.88 m) and 18 ft (5.49 m) skiffs. The 29er, 49er, SKUD and Musto Skiff are all considered to have developed from the skiff concept, all of which are sailed internationally.
The Laser 2, or Laser II, is a sailboat that was designed by New Zealander Frank Bethwaite and Canadian Ian Bruce as a one-design racer and first built in 1978.
In a keel boat, a death roll is the act of broaching to windward, putting the spinnaker pole into the water and causing a crash-jibe of the boom and mainsail, which sweep across the deck and plunge down into the water. The death roll often results in the destruction of the spinnaker pole and sometimes even the dismasting of the boat. Serious injury to crew is possible due to the swift and uncontrolled action of the boom and associated gear sweeping across the boat and crashing to the (now) leeward side.
The 29er is a two-person high performance sailing skiff designed by Julian Bethwaite and first produced in 1998. Derived from the Olympic class 49er class, it is raced in the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships. The 29er is able to reach high speeds fairly quickly by having a sleek and hydrodynamic hull and will often exceed the wind speed when planing both up and downwind.
The 18 ft Skiff is considered the fastest class of sailing skiffs. The class has a long history beginning with races on Sydney Harbour, Australia in 1892 and later in New Zealand. The boat has changed significantly since the early days, bringing in new technology as it became available. Because of the need of strength, agility and skill, the class is considered to be the top level of small boat sailing. Worldwide this boat is called the "18 Foot Skiff". It is the fastest conventional non-foiling monohull on the yardstick rating, with a score of 675, coming only third after the Tornado and Inter 20.
The 12 ft Skiff is a development dinghy class dating back to the early 20th century. It is sailed in Australia and New Zealand. It is 12 ft (3.7 m) in length, hence the name, and is a two-man boat. Both the crew and the helm are able to use the trapeze at the same time. It has an asymmetrical spinnaker and a jib, in addition to the mainsail.
An asymmetrical spinnaker is a sail used when sailing between about 90 and 165 degrees from the angle of the wind. Also known as an "asym", "aspin", or "A-sail" it can be described as a cross between a genoa jib and a spinnaker. It is asymmetric like a genoa, but like a spinnaker, its luff is unstructured; its leading edge is allowed to float freely, unencumbered by an internal wire or hanks attaching it to a stay. Unlike a symmetric spinnaker, the asymmetric does not require a spinnaker pole, since it is fixed (tacked) to the bow or a bowsprit.
The 29erXX is a high performance sailing skiff, it was designed to allow light crews, particularly female crews, to sail twin trapeze boats and as a training boat for the more powerful 49er. The class gained International Sailing Federation Class status in May 2011, but lost it in 2014.
The SKUD 18 is a class of racing sailing boat. It is a lead-assisted skiff with a tube-launched asymmetrical and a modern high performance stayed rig. The boat was created for trials held by the International Association for Disabled Sailing who were looking for a new two person boat for an additional medal allocated to sailing for the 2008 Paralympics.
High-performance sailing is achieved with low forward surface resistance—encountered by catamarans, sailing hydrofoils, iceboats or land sailing craft—as the sailing craft obtains motive power with its sails or aerofoils at speeds that are often faster than the wind on both upwind and downwind points of sail. Faster-than-the-wind sailing means that the apparent wind angle experienced on the moving craft is always ahead of the sail. This has generated a new concept of sailing, called "apparent wind sailing", which entails a new skill set for its practitioners, including tacking on downwind points of sail.
The Laser 5000 is a double-handed, dual trapeze skiff with an asymmetrical spinnaker. It derives its name from its length of 5 metres. Losing out to the Bethwaite-designed 49er for selection as an Olympic class for the 2000 Games, it was one of 11 designs that took part in the ISAF High Performance Olympic Dinghy Evaluation Event in 1996.
The JJ Giltinan International Trophy is considered the world's premier 18-foot skiff open championship, the eponymous brainchild of noted Australian sports entrepreneur J. J. Giltinan.
