gaff rig

gaff rig, a fore-and-aft rig, development of the spritsail rig. It was, according to the evidence from marine paintings, in existence in Sweden as early as 1525, although it is generally believed to have originated some years earlier in Holland. For the first hundred years or so of its existence the gaff, a spar to which the head of the rig's mainsail is attached and from which the rig took its name, was known as a half-sprit. It was the logical development of the earlier sprit, serving the same purpose of spreading the sail, but with much greater efficiency and with considerably lighter and handier spars.

The forward end of the gaff is held against the mast by jaws, or pivoted to a wrought-iron saddle, to fit round the mast. To hold the gaff against the mast in all conditions, the gaff jaws were often joined by a parrel. Two sets of halyards are used to hoist a gaff sail, throat halyards at the mast end and peak halyards at the outer end, but on many traditional types of Dutch craft the gaff is a very short spar, usually cut into an arched curve, and only a single halyard, attached to a span on the gaff, is used to hoist it.

For some centuries, up to the introduction of mechanical power, the gaff rig was the sailing rig of the great majority of small craft, including trawlers and drifters, with the exception perhaps of those in eastern waters of the Mediterranean where the lateen rig predominated. It remained as such until the gradual introduction, during the first two decades of the 20th century, of the Bermudan rig. However, the gaff rig remains the preferred rig for some cruising yachtsmen.

A gaff mainsail was commonly extended by setting a jackyard topsail or a jib-headed topsail above it to fill the area between the mast and the gaff.