Sailboats are truly beautiful to watch from a distance. Graceful and practically silent, often with colorfully decorated sails, these boats seem to glide through the water like birds through the air. Of course, if you have ever been on a sailboat in a decent wind, you know that that appearance of calm is far from the truth. Operating a sailboat requires a great deal of concentration, knowledge and skill, in no small part because of the many parts and pieces composing the vessel. Of course, the term "sailboat" actually covers a wide variety of boats, from sloops to cutters to schooners. Each type of boat has its own specifications, design and intended purpose.



Sloops are probably the most commonly known type of sailboat, and they are popular with amateur and professional sailors alike. These vessels feature two sails, the mainsail and the foresail, attached to a single mast. The mainsail is also attached to the boom, a pole that runs the length of the sail's bottom. The boom can be moved from one side of the boat to the other, allowing the mainsail to better harness the wind's power. On a sailboat, it is not uncommon for someone to yell "Boom!" If you ever hear this, duck, because the boom of the mainsail is about to swing across the deck, and anyone in the way will be knocked into the water.

Cutters are similar to sloops in that they have a single mast and mainsail with a boom. However, the mast of a cutter is usually positioned further aft, allowing the boat to carry two headsails, the jib and the staysail. The headsails are attached to forestays, the head stay and the inner stay, which are pieces of rigging used to keep the mast from tilting backwards. Cutters are popular as cruising boats, especially in high wind conditions, when it is useful to be able to fly a small jib from the inner stay.

Schooners, characterized by fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts, are much larger vessels than either cutters or sloops. The aft-most mast is taller than or equal to the height of the forward mast or masts. These boats date back to the 16th century and over the years, were used for everything from blockade running to offshore fishing. Schooners were most commonly used for commerce during the 19th century, but they have since been abandoned for more modern means of transport. However, some schooners still exist in the form of pleasure boats or racing yachts.

In addition to their sails, all sailboats may be categorized by the styles of their hulls and keels. The hull is essentially the body of the boat. Sailboats are usually monohulls, meaning that it has only one body. However, multi-hull styles like catamarans and trimarans, which have one ore more bodies attached side by side, are gaining in popularity. The keel of a boat is the structural backbone of the boat and consists of a large beam around which the hull is built. It runs along the middle of the hull from the bow to the stern.