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A Bermuda rig, Bermudian rig, or Marconi rig is a configuration of mast and
rigging Rigging comprises the system of ropes, cables and chains, which support a sailing ship or sail boat's masts—''standing rigging'', including shrouds and stays—and which adjust the position of the vessel's sails and spars to which they are ...
for a type of
sailboat A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails and is smaller than a sailing ship. Distinctions in what constitutes a sailing boat and ship vary by region and maritime culture. Types Although sailboat terminology ...
and is the typical configuration for most modern sailboats. This configuration was developed in
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in the 1600s; the term ''Marconi'', a reference to the inventor of the
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
,
Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italians, Italian inventor and electrical engineering, electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegrap ...
, became associated with this configuration in the early 1900s because the wires that stabilize the mast of a Bermuda rig reminded observers of the wires on early radio masts.


Description

The rig consists of a triangular sail set aft of the mast with its
mainsail A mainsail is a sail rigged on the main mast of a sailing vessel. * On a square rigged vessel, it is the lowest and largest sail on the main mast. * On a fore-and-aft rigged vessel, it is the sail rigged aft of the main mast. The sail's foot ...
raised to the top of the mast; its luff runs down the mast and is normally attached to it for its entire length; its
tack TACK is a group of archaea acronym for Thaumarchaeota (now Nitrososphaerota), Aigarchaeota, Crenarchaeota (now Thermoproteota), and Korarchaeota, the first groups discovered. They are found in different environments ranging from acidophilic the ...
is attached at the base of the mast; its
foot The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...
(in modern versions of the rig) controlled by a
boom Boom may refer to: Objects * Boom (containment), a temporary floating barrier used to contain an oil spill * Boom (navigational barrier), an obstacle used to control or block marine navigation * Boom (sailing), a sailboat part * Boom (windsurfi ...
; and its
clew Sail components include the features that define a sail's shape and function, plus its constituent parts from which it is manufactured. A sail may be classified in a variety of ways, including by its orientation to the vessel (e.g. ''fore-and-a ...
attached to the aft end of the boom, which is controlled by its sheet.''Boats, Boffins and Bowlines: The Stories of Sailing Inventors and Innovations'', by George Drower. The History Press. 1 May 2011. Originally developed for smaller Bermudian vessels, and ultimately adapted to the larger, ocean-going
Bermuda sloop The Bermuda sloop is a historical type of fore-and-aft rigged single-masted sailing vessel developed on the islands of Bermuda in the 17th century. Such vessels originally had gaff rigs with quadrilateral sails, but evolved to use the Bermuda rig ...
, the Bermuda sail is set as the
mainsail A mainsail is a sail rigged on the main mast of a sailing vessel. * On a square rigged vessel, it is the lowest and largest sail on the main mast. * On a fore-and-aft rigged vessel, it is the sail rigged aft of the main mast. The sail's foot ...
on the
main mast The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected more or less vertically on the centre-line of a ship or boat. Its purposes include carrying sails, spars, and derricks, and giving necessary height to a navigation ligh ...
. The Bermuda rigging has largely replaced the older
gaff rig Gaff rig is a sailing rig (configuration of sails, mast and stays) in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar (pole) called the ''gaff''. Because of the size and shape ...
ged
fore-and-aft A fore-and-aft rig is a sailing vessel rigged mainly with sails set along the line of the keel, rather than perpendicular to it as on a square rigged vessel. Description Fore-and-aft rigged sails include staysails, Bermuda rigged sails, ga ...
sails, except notably on
schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...
s. The traditional design as developed in
Bermuda ) , anthem = "God Save the King" , song_type = National song , song = " Hail to Bermuda" , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , mapsize2 = , map_caption2 = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = , e ...
features very tall, raked masts, a long
bowsprit The bowsprit of a sailing vessel is a spar extending forward from the vessel's prow. The bowsprit is typically held down by a bobstay that counteracts the forces from the forestays. The word ''bowsprit'' is thought to originate from the Middle L ...
, and may or may not have a boom. In some configurations such as the
Bermuda Fitted Dinghy The Bermuda Fitted Dinghy is a type of racing-dedicated sail boat used for competitions between the yacht clubs of Bermuda. Although the class has only existed for about 130 years, the boats are a continuance of a tradition of boat and ship desi ...
vast areas of sail are achieved with this rig. Elsewhere, however, the design has omitted the bowsprit, and has otherwise become less extreme. A Bermuda rigged
sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...
with a single
jib A jib is a triangular sail that sets ahead of the foremast of a sailing vessel. Its tack is fixed to the bowsprit, to the bows, or to the deck between the bowsprit and the foremost mast. Jibs and spinnakers are the two main types of headsails ...
is known as a ''Bermuda sloop'', a ''Marconi sloop'', or a ''Marconi rig''. A
Bermuda sloop The Bermuda sloop is a historical type of fore-and-aft rigged single-masted sailing vessel developed on the islands of Bermuda in the 17th century. Such vessels originally had gaff rigs with quadrilateral sails, but evolved to use the Bermuda rig ...
may also be a more specific type of vessel such as a small sailing ships traditional in Bermuda which may or may not be Bermuda ''rigged''. The foot of a Bermuda sail may be attached to the boom along its length, or in some modern rigs the sail is attached to the boom only at its ends. This modern variation of a Bermuda mainsail is known as a ''loose-footed main''. In some early Bermudian vessels, the mainsails were attached only to the mast and deck, lacking booms. This is the case on two of the three masts of the newly built ''
Spirit of Bermuda The ''Spirit of Bermuda'' is a modern-built Bermuda sloop. She is a replica of a Royal Navy sloop-of-war, depicted in a well-known 1831 painting. History of the Bermuda sloop The Bermuda sloop was a type of small sailing ship built in Bermud ...
'', a replica of an 1830s British
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
sloop-of-war In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' enc ...
. Additional sails were also often mounted on traditional Bermudian craft, when running down wind, which included a
spinnaker A spinnaker is a sail designed specifically for sailing off the wind on courses between a reach (wind at 90° to the course) to downwind (course in the same direction as the wind). Spinnakers are constructed of lightweight fabric, usually n ...
, with a spinnaker boom, and additional jibs. The main controls on a Bermuda sail are: * The
cunningham Cunningham is a surname of Scottish origin, see Clan Cunningham. Notable people sharing this surname A–C *Aaron Cunningham (born 1986), American baseball player *Abe Cunningham, American drummer * Adrian Cunningham (born 1960), Australian ...
tightens the luff of a boom-footed sail by pulling downward on a cringle in the luff of a mainsail above the tack. *The
halyard In sailing, a halyard or halliard is a line (rope) that is used to hoist a ladder, sail, flag or yard. The term ''halyard'' comes from the phrase "to haul yards". Halyards, like most other parts of the running rigging, were classically made of n ...
used to raise the head, and sometimes to tension the luff. *The
outhaul An outhaul is a control line found on a sailboat. It is an element of the running rigging, used to attach the mainsail Parts of a sail#Corners, clew to the boom (sailing), boom and tensions the Sail components#Edges, foot of the sail. It commonly ...
used to tension the
foot The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg made ...
by hauling the
clew Sail components include the features that define a sail's shape and function, plus its constituent parts from which it is manufactured. A sail may be classified in a variety of ways, including by its orientation to the vessel (e.g. ''fore-and-a ...
towards the end of the boom. *The sheet used to haul the boom down and towards the center of the boat. *The vang or ''kicking strap'' which runs between a point partway along the boom and the base of the mast, and is used to provide a downward force on the boom, which helps to prevent excessive twist in the leach, particularly when reaching or running.


History

The development of the rig is thought to have begun with fore-and-aft rigged boats built by a Dutch-born Bermudian in the 1600s. The Dutch were influenced by Moorish
lateen rig A lateen (from French ''latine'', meaning "Latin") or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long yard mounted at an angle on the mast, and running in a fore-and-aft direction. The settee can be considered to be an associated type of the same o ...
s introduced during Spain's rule of their country. The Dutch eventually modified the design by omitting the masts, with the yard arms of the lateens being ''stepped in thwarts''. By this process, the yards became raked masts. Lateen sails mounted this way were known as ''leg-of-mutton'' sails in English. The Dutch called a vessel rigged in this manner a ''bezaanjacht'' ( nl). A bezaan jacht is visible in a painting of King Charles II arriving in Rotterdam in 1660. After sailing on such a vessel, Charles was so impressed that his eventual successor, the Prince of Orange presented him with a copy of his own, which Charles named ''Bezaan''. The rig had been introduced to Bermuda some decades before this. Captain John Smith reported that Captain
Nathaniel Butler Nathaniel Butler (born c. 1577, living 1639, date of death unknown) was an English privateer who later served as the colonial governor of Bermuda during the early 17th century. He had built many structures still seen in Bermuda today includin ...
, who was the governor of Bermuda from 1619 to 1622, employed the Dutch boat builder, Jacob Jacobsen, one of the crew of a Dutch frigate which had been wrecked on Bermuda, who quickly established a leading position among Bermuda's boat makers, reportedly building and selling more than a hundred boats within the space of three years (to the resentment of many of his competitors, who were forced to emulate his designs). A poem published by John H. Hardie in 1671 described Bermuda's boats such: ''With tripple corner'd Sayls they always float, About the Islands, in the world there are, None in all points that may with them compare.'' Ships with somewhat similar rigs were in fact recorded in Holland during the 1600s. These early Bermuda rigged boats evidently lacked jibs or booms, and the masts appear not to have been as robust as they were to become (a boat rigged with a Bermuda or gaff mainsail and no jib would today be known as a
catboat A catboat (alternate spelling: cat boat) is a sailboat with a single sail on a single mast set well forward in the bow of a very beamy and (usually) shallow draft hull. Typically they are gaff rigged, though Bermuda rig is also used. Most are f ...
). In 1675, Samuel Fortrey, of
Kew Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is a ...
, wrote to the naval administrator and
Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
,
Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...
, a treatise entitled ''Of Navarchi'', suggesting the improvement of the ''Bermoodn'' rig with the addition of a boom, but evidently nothing came of this. Bermudian builders did introduce these innovations themselves, though when they first appeared has been lost to record.''Boats, Boffins and Bowlines: The Stories of Sailing Inventors and Innovations'', by George Drower. The History Press. 1 May 2011. ''We invented the international 'modern' Rig''
by Dr.
Edward C. Harris Edward Cecil Harris, is a prominent Bermudian archaeologist. He is best known for the "Harris matrix", developed in February 1973 and considered by some to be the "industry standard" for stratigraphic archaeology. This was followed by a five- ...
, MBE, Executive Director of the
Bermuda Maritime Museum The National Museum of Bermuda, previously the Bermuda Maritime Museum from its opening in 1974 until 2009 (legislatively formalised in 2013), explores the maritime and island history of Bermuda. The maritime museum is located within the grounds ...
. The Royal Gazette, Hamilton, Bermuda By the 1800s, the design of Bermudian vessels had largely dispensed with square topsails and gaff rig, replacing them with triangular main sails and jibs. The Bermuda rig had traditionally been used on vessels with two or more masts, with the gaff rig favoured for single-masted vessels. The reason for this was the increased height necessary for a single mast, which led to too much canvas. The solid wooden masts at that height were also too heavy, and not sufficiently strong. This changed when the boats began to be raced in the early 1800s. H. G. Hunt, a naval officer (and possibly the Henry G. Hunt who was the Acting
Governor of Bermuda The Governor of Bermuda (fully the ''Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Somers Isles (alias the Islands of Bermuda)'') is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Bermuda. For the purposes of this a ...
in 1835) concluded in the 1820s that a single-masted sloop would be superior to the schooner he had been racing and was proved correct when the yacht he had commissioned won a secret race against a schooner the night before a public race, and the public race itself the following day. Single-masted sloops quickly became the norm in Bermudian racing, with the introduction of hollow masts and other refinements. The colony's lightweight
Bermuda cedar ''Juniperus bermudiana'' is a species of juniper endemic to Bermuda. This species is most commonly known as Bermuda cedar, but is also referred to as Bermuda juniper (Bermudians refer to it simply as ''cedar''). Historically, this tree formed wo ...
vessels were widely prized for their agility and speed, especially upwind. The high, raked masts and long bowsprits and booms favoured in Bermuda allowed its vessels of all sizes to carry vast areas of sail when running down-wind with spinnakers and multiple jibs, allowing great speeds to be reached. Bermudian work boats, mostly small sloops, were ubiquitous on the archipelago's waters in the 1800s, moving freight, people, and everything else about. The rig was eventually adopted almost universally on small sailing craft in the 1900s, although as seen on most modern vessels it is very much less extreme than on traditional Bermudian designs, with lower, vertical masts, shorter booms, omitted bowsprits, and much less area of canvas. The term ''Marconi rig'' was first applied to the tall Bermuda rig used on larger racing yachts, such as the J class used since 1914 for the
America's Cup The America's Cup, informally known as the Auld Mug, is a trophy awarded in the sport of sailing. It is the oldest international competition still operating in any sport. America's Cup match races are held between two sailing yachts: one f ...
international yacht races, as - with the many supporting cables required - it reminded observers of
Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italians, Italian inventor and electrical engineering, electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegrap ...
's mast-like
wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
antennas In radio engineering, an antenna or aerial is the interface between radio waves propagating through space and electric currents moving in metal conductors, used with a transmitter or receiver. In transmission, a radio transmitter supplies a ...
(Marconi's first demonstrations in the United States took place in the autumn of 1899, with the reporting of the America's Cup at New York). Although sometimes treated as interchangeable with ''Bermuda rig'' generally, some purists insist that ''Marconi rig'' refers only to the very tall Bermuda rig used on yachts like the J-class.


Gallery

Image:Royal Navy - Bermuda Sloop2.jpeg, The 1831 painting, by John Lynn, of the Bermuda sloop of the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
upon which the ''
Spirit of Bermuda The ''Spirit of Bermuda'' is a modern-built Bermuda sloop. She is a replica of a Royal Navy sloop-of-war, depicted in a well-known 1831 painting. History of the Bermuda sloop The Bermuda sloop was a type of small sailing ship built in Bermud ...
'' was modelled File:Spirit of Bermuda.jpg, The sail training ship ''Spirit of Bermuda''. File:Bermuda sloop race.jpg, A 19th-century race in Bermuda. Visible are three Bermuda rigged and two gaff rigged sloops. File:Bermuda Fitted Dinghy at Mangrove Bay.jpg, A
Bermuda Fitted Dinghy The Bermuda Fitted Dinghy is a type of racing-dedicated sail boat used for competitions between the yacht clubs of Bermuda. Although the class has only existed for about 130 years, the boats are a continuance of a tradition of boat and ship desi ...
at Mangrove Bay in 2016


See also

*
Glossary of nautical terms (A-L) This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water (mostly though not necessarily on the sea). Some remain current, while many date from the 17th t ...
* *
B&R rig The B&R rig is a variant of the Bermuda sailboat rig, designed and patented by Swedish aeronautical engineers Lars Bergström and Sven Ridder. It employs swept spreaders that are usually angled aft, together with "stays" running diagonally down ...
*
Masthead rig A masthead rig on a sailing vessel consists of a forestay and backstay both attached at the top of the mast. The Bermuda rig can be split into two groups: the masthead rig and the fractional rig. The masthead rig has larger and more headsails, ...
*
Fractional rig A fractional rig on a sailing vessel consists of a foresail, such as a jib or genoa sail, that does not reach all the way to the top of the mast. The forestay is a wire that secures the mast to the front of the boat. With a fractional rig, the ...


Sources

* ''Sailing in Bermuda: Sail Racing in the Nineteenth Century'', by J.C. Arnell, 1982. Published by the Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club. Printed by the University of Toronto Press.


References


Further reading

*


External links


Bermuda Sloop Foundation
by Geoffrey Footner, describing development of the
Baltimore clipper A Baltimore Clipper is a fast sailing ship historically built on the mid-Atlantic seaboard of the United States of America, especially at the port of Baltimore, Maryland. An early form of clipper, the name is most commonly applied to two-masted ...
(large chapter on Bermuda sloops and role of Bermudian boatbuilders).
Partial list of Bermudian-built Royal Naval vessels (from ''The Andrew and the Onions'', by Lt. Cmdr. I. Strannack).The ''Royal Bermuda Yacht Club''Royal Hamilton Amateur Dinghy Club
{{Sail Types Sailing rigs and rigging