The Best Sails For Cruising Sailboats
The best sails for cruising sailboats is a much-debated topic. Cruising sailboats, by definition, put a lot of miles under the keel. Naturally, the hope is that a lot of those miles will be powered by nothing but the wind and your wardrobe of sails (the wind sometimes has other ideas).
In this article we run you through some of the best sails for cruising sailboats, their advantages and disadvantages, and the kind of conditions you might want to fly them in.
We’ll take you through everything you need to know, from the primary types of sail you’ll find on a cruising sailboat to the performance-enhancing extras favoured by seasoned circumnavigators.
With more than a decade’s full-time liveaboard experience aboard both monohull and multihull boats with thousands of miles under the keel, we’ve finely tuned our sail wardrobe and have a good idea of what you’re likely to need out on the water.
Table of Contents
- What is a cruising sailboat?
- Types of sailboat rig on the cruising sailboat
- Best sails for cruising sailboats: types of headsail
- Best sails for cruising sailboats: best mainsail
- So what sails do you really need for cruising?
What is a cruising sailboat?
Before we start taking a look at sails it’s important to understand the needs of a cruising sailboat. What makes a cruising sailboat, and how does it differ from say, a racing sailboat?
A cruising sailboat is one that has either been built for, or set up for, living aboard and cruising to multiple ports or anchorages over the span of several weeks, months or even years.
Cruising can be long-distance – AKA bluewater cruising – or it can simply mean living aboard for a couple of weeks while you sail around the Greek Ionian, for example. There’s no exact definition, but to most it means multi-stop, liveaboard sailing for at least a week and usually longer.
When living aboard for an extended time your requirements shift and you start to need more storage for food, personal belongings and parts.
You also want a few more creature comforts aboard, and as such the weight of your vessel (her displacement) will increase accordingly.
Cruising boats are therefore usually those that accept a larger payload and have space for sufficient power generation and storage for long-term life aboard. They can be built with this in mind, or can simply be designs that happen to work well for the job.
Some people will also argue that a cruising sailboat is one that emphasises safety over performance; others will argue that catamarans or monohulls are better for long-term life aboard.
We’re not here to try and solve those questions today – just to point out that there are differences between cruising and racing sailboats, and that those differences will be reflected in the sails.
For example, a racing boat could use tri-radial, mylar-laminated sails to maximise performance. A cruising boat might prefer a sail made of Dacron or perhaps laminated Polyester, trading off some performance for dramatically increased durability.
A cruising boat might also want a headsail with the clew – the aftmost corner – cut high. This slightly reduces the area of the sail but makes it much easier to keep a watch forward. This set of trade-offs is attractive to the long-distance cruiser but not the weekend racer.
We’ll explore everything you need to know in this comprehensive guide.
Types of sailboat rig on the cruising sailboat
The best sails for your cruising sailboat depend in part on your rig, because it impacts the sails you can fly.
Cruising sailboat rigs can broadly be split into single and twin-masted, and sails split into those that are flown in ahead of, and aft of, those masts. Sails in front of the mast are headsails; the sail aft of the mast, tensioned by the boom, is usually the mainsail.
In a twin-masted vessel like a ketch, we would also specify whether they fly on the main or the aft mizzen mast. Of course, sailing vessels with three or more masts exist, but you don’t see many circumnavigators sailing off into the sunset at the helm of a Barquentine anymore.
Single-masted cruising sailboats
The most popular single-masted configuration in the world today is the Bermuda-rigged sloop. A sloop has one mast and two main sails: a triangular mainsail aft of the mast, and a triangular headsail usually called a jib or genoa forward of the mast.
As we’ll see in a moment, a sloop can also carry and fly a range of other sails, from storm jibs to cruising chutes, but the key piece of info is that a sloop generally flies two sails at a time.
The next step up in complexity would be something like a cutter rig or Solent rig, which both still have a single mast but also carry a second, differently-sized headsail alongside the first.
The second headsail could be a big, lightweight chute to enable sailing in light airs, or it could be a small, tough storm jib for heavy weather. The point is that with a cutter or Solent rig you have a second sail loaded and ready to go at all times.
What is the difference between a cutter rig and a Solent rig? In a cutter, the inner headsail attaches about a quarter of the way down the mast, resulting in a fairly large gap between the two headsails. This translates to a smaller inner headsail, but easier tacking of the outer headsail (although still much harder than with a sloop).
The Solent rig, on the other hand, has both headsails attached at the masthead and all but touching. This maximises the size of both sails and makes for a powerful rig, but means you have to fully furl away the outer headsail to tack.
As such, the Solent rig is sometimes seen with a big downwind chute or similar on the outer stay, whereas a cutter rig usually has a small, self-tacking jib often called a staysail on the inner stay.
There are of course a dozen other types of single-masted sailboat – from the catboat to the lateen – but we’re talking about the kinds commonly used by cruising sailboats.
When it comes to single-masted cruising sailboats, you’re really choosing between the raw simplicity of a sloop, or trading off a bit of cost and complexity to carry an extra headsail in cutter or Solent configuration.
Many ocean cruisers prefer the extra headsail because redundancy can be a lifesaver offshore, and you rarely tack on ocean passages anyway. Someone cruising the Greek islands a few weeks per year might want to keep things simple and minimise maintenance with a sloop.
It’s worth noting that almost all catamarans are single-masted and use one of the configurations above.
Catamaran sails are conceptually similar, but they are cut and proportioned differently, with a much larger mainsail relative to the headsail (jib) and sometimes a square top.
The large deck real-estate and large bow lockers of a catamaran make it much easier and safer to unfurl and deploy chute-type sails like spinnakers.
Two-masted cruising sailboats
Two-masted cruising sailboats such as ketches and yawls dominated the long-distance sailing scene in the 70’s and 80’s.
Proponents of two-masted boats point to the fact that each individual sail can be smaller and therefore easier to manage, and that carrying more sails translates to redundancy, flexibility and safety. It also means a smaller crew can handle a bigger boat.
Ketches are arguably the most popular. The difference between a ketch and yawl is the size and position of the aft mizzen mast, with the yawl featuring a smaller and further-aft mizzen.
Again, many other varieties of twin-masted rig exist, such as the schooner – which has two large masts of similar size – but they’re not enormously common amongst the cruising crowd.
As previously noted, it’s rare to see multihulls such as catamarans with two-mast rigs, but they do exist – and can either have the two masts in series like a regular ketch, or one on each hull in a “biplane” configuration.
On sailing boats that have two masts, the sails on the main mast are usually referred to as the mainsail and headsail, and sails on the mizzen mast are known as mizzen sails.
Best sails for cruising sailboats: types of headsail
Headsails are sails, generally triangular, that are flown out in front of the mast – usually attached to a head stay, a cable running from the masthead down the forestay at the bow of the boat.
Jibs, genoas and Yankees
The most common types of headsail are the jib, genoa and the Yankee. Sailors will argue about the difference between the three; many will use the terms more or less interchangeably.
A common definition is that if stretched out, a genoa would stretch from the bow of the boat to aft of the mast, whereas a jib would stop short.
A Yankee often refers to a jib that has been cut very high, making it easier to see under and “keep a watch”.
You may hear headsails referred to with a “luff percentage”, such as “a 120% genoa”. This means the genoa is 20% larger than the space between the mast and the forestay – it would overshoot the mast and then another 20% – and would therefore be a reasonably large and powerful sail.
Many cruising sailboat skippers will want a couple of kinds of headsail available to suit different conditions, particularly a cruising chute such as a spinnaker or gennaker.
Spinnakers and gennakers
Spinnakers and gennakers are a popular type of large, lightweight headsail that excels at sailing downwind in light air.
Spinnakers are a type of sail that is shaped like a parachute and made from a lightweight fabric that is usually brightly coloured. They are usually symmetrical and flown forward of the mainsail while running more or less dead downwind.
Spinnakers need a pole to control them and often need to be actively managed by the crew, or “flown like a kite”. They can be unruly and challenging for a short-handed crew, but they’re unrivaled in light air. Gennakers are generally considered much easier to handle.
Gennaker is a portmanteau of Genoa and Spinnaker, and represents something halfway in between the two – a little heavier, and also asymmetrical like a Genoa, i.e. flown on one side of the bow or the other and not straight out front.
The upshot of this is that you can’t sail dead downwind, but you can sail right up to a beam reach – from 90 degrees right down to about 140 degrees – whereas a symmetrical sail like a spinnaker is for the 180 degrees (dead downwind) out to perhaps 130.
Both sails are popular with circumnavigating sailors because the average circumnavigation has the wind abaft the beam most of the way – but they’re a great addition to almost any cruising sailboat.
Multihulls like catamarans usually do not sail well dead downwind and will therefore want one of the asymmetric variants.
Storm jibs and staysail: A staple sail on cruising sailboats
At the other end of the scale is the storm jib. This is a 3-sided sail made from heavy cloth, designed to be flown in heavy weather.
A storm jib should be less than 5% of the triangle delineated by the mast and forestay.
Their small size and heavy durable cloth mean they can withstand wind speeds of sustained 30kts or
In theory, you can reef down a larger headsail in a blow. But a purpose-made storm sail will be stronger, and it will present a better shape to the wind than a fat bundle of reefed sailcloth.
Many cutters will have a staysail on the inner forestay, which is a small jib that is commonly set up to be self-tacking. This is not a storm jib but its small size, self-handling and the ability to sheet it right the way to the centreline like the main make it an excellent choice for heavy weather sailing up to 30 or 35 kts.
Best sails for cruising sailboats: best mainsail
Where it’s fairly normal to carry multiple headsails, a lot of boats only fly one thing aft of the mast: the mainsail, or simply main.
The main works to balance the forces of the headsails around the mast, and it plays a critical role in upwind performance as it’s able to assume the fairly rigid, wing-like shape boats need to travel upwind.
Main sails usually incorporate some sort of stiffening batten nowadays to help them maintain their shape.
The majority of mainsails are pin-headed, i.e. triangular, ending in a sharp point at the masthead. Multihulls sometimes use a square-top mainsail instead – which is like a triangle with the top point cut off.
Try sails, tri-sales
Some cruising sailboats carry small, heavy-weather mainsails called trysails or tri-sails. A trysail can simply be a small main, but more often they are cut from heavy orange cloth and reinforced with heavy stitching.
The logic of flying a smaller sail in heavy weather, rather than reefing down a big one, is that it’s a lot more aerodynamic – you don’t have the big slug of reefed fabric around the boom.
It also protects your main from the worst weather. Taking your main off and stowing it below is the only surefire way to protect it during a storm.
Riders, ride sails
Riders are small sails that are flown aft of the mast, particularly on a ketch. These are not used to propel the boat, but instead to keep the bow of the boat into the wind while at anchor.
This has the effect of putting any wind-driven waves or swell in the anchor under the bow, and making life much more pleasant for those on board.
Ventilation on sailboats also typically faces forwards, so a ride sail can help with airflow below. Some cruisers argue it will even reduce snatching of the anchor, but we’re not sure about that one.
So what sails do you really need for cruising?
That’s a lot of information thrown at you if you’re new to sailing, so let’s summarise. What sails do you actually need for long term cruising on a liveaboard sailboat and what sails do we use most regularly?
- A genoa (or job or yankee). This is one we use all the time and couldn’t be without. You will need a decent foresail to balance the sails well and keep the boat sailing on course. We also use the genoa as our only sail a lot of the time as we can reef it really easily in gusty conditions (which are common in the Med)
- A mainsail. For most people this is their primary sail, the one they will put up pretty much no matter what and often before even leaving the anchorage.
- A storm sail. We see this as an essential even though we haven’t had to rig it yet. It’s the last thing you want to be without when things get really spicy out there.
- A light wind sail. This is optional but super useful. A light wind sail like a spinnaker or gennaker isn’t absolutely essential but is very nice to have if you’re cruising long term.
More sails than this are super useful but we wouldn’t consider them essentials. You will need to decide what’s within your budget and how much space you have onboard.
Note: Many long-term cruisers consider it necessary to carry a spare genoa and mainsail. If you plan on doing lots of long passages or sailing in remote places then spare sails could be literal life-savers. If you plan on pottering around the Med then it is likely you would never find yourself in a situation where you needed a spare sail. If you found yourself with a ripped sail in bad conditions then you’re unlikely to find the safest option to be rigging a new sail, but rather would seek the nearest port.
Conclusion: The Best Sails For Cruisers
Choosing the right sails for cruisers is a crucial decision that directly impacts your sailing experience. Depending on the type of sailing you’re going to be doing, your boat and your experience will affect the sails you need, but having a choice is never a bad thing!
Now that you’ve decided which sails you need you might be wondering where on earth to get them from. This is another thing we painstakingly researched.
You have a few options. The traditional way of buying sails is to go to a local port and use the ‘sailmaker’. Remember the name is deceiving. They’ll simply measure up for you and order your sails from their manufacturer.
The option we found most appealing as cruisers on a budget was to skip the middleman and opt for Precision Sails. You work with them to design the perfect sail for your boat using the measurements you give them (they give you step-by-step instructions that are pretty foolproof).
The voila! Your sail arrives a few weeks later.
We’re thrilled with our mainsail. It’s been designed specifically for a cruising catamaran and the sail designer at Precision Sails worked with us to make sure it was exactly as we wanted it (with professional input of course!) It’s made to the highest standard and makes our boat fly like a beast. We can highly recommend!
