The Joys of the Gaff Rig
I have been giving a lot of thought to the gaff rig lately, partly because I recently bent on a new gaff mainsail to my new gaff sloop and also because much of my writing involves gaff rigged boats of different sizes doing different things in different environments.
I am interested in luggers, especially the big, two-masted “bisquines” of Brittany, but I am an American living in Florida where luggers have always been rare and gaffers have mostly been forgotten.
I am not so much interested in the origins and evolution of the gaff rig as I am interested in it’s history of use over the past 200–300 years, as well as its continuing use.
Tom Cunliffe, author of Hand, Reef and Steer, writes that “deep-hulled gaffers and their sail plans are at the end of a line of natural development that stretches back to the time of Christ.”
Historical perspective is always valuable.