Rigging
In a sailing yacht, the sails are essentially the boat’s engine. When operated correctly, this engine provides an optimal sailing experience — offering both performance and comfort. Understanding how to trim and manage the sails allows you to optimize speed, improve efficiency, or adjust for maximum comfort for your crew.
Our goal here is not to teach sailing from scratch, but rather to provide you — our clients and your guests — with a chance to align, refresh, and recall essential knowledge for those who don’t sail regularly. We’ll go over key sailing concepts, sail system components, and basic best practices for handling sails onboard.
Sail configurations may vary from one boat to another. On some yachts, the mainsail is stored in a lazy pack and hoisted along the mast using a halyard. On others, the mainsail is furling and housed inside the mast, requiring a slightly different technique for deploying and reefing the sail.
In this guide, we’ve chosen to focus on the standard charter sail setup — typically mainsail and genoa (or jib) — and have not included advanced sails such as Code Zero, gennaker, or spinnaker, which are not commonly used in standard charter operations.
You're welcome to watch the included videos before or during your holiday — or even use them as a fun group activity with your crew. It's a great way to introduce your team to the world of sailing, teach them basic skills, and help them feel part of the sailing operation.
Of course, there are countless online resources and tutorials if you wish to expand your knowledge. We've carefully selected the videos that we believe are the clearest, most practical, and easiest to follow.
1. Sailboat rigging explained
A beginner's guide to sailboat rigging, including standing rigging and running rigging. This animated tutorial is the first in a series and covers sails, lines, jammers, winches and all other aspects of a sailing vessel. (08:15)
2. Guide to rigging, mainsheet, jibsail, theory basics
Second in a series, this video explains rigging for yachts and sailboats. (12:15)
3. Reefing the mainsail
Learn how standing rigging and running rigging works on modern day cruiser yachts, includes demonstration of mainsail reefing (10:15)
Sailing tutorial In-Mast Furling Mid-boom Sheeting Sailing
A fun and easy-to-understand tutorial featuring the basics of in-mast furling and mid-boom sheeting, what it does, and how it works. (05:54)
Learn to Sail - Basic Sail Trim #1
The basics of sail trim, which includes sail draft, sail twist, sailing with balanced sails, and understanding how our keel affects our sail trim. Also includes introduction to tell-tales and air flow on a regular cruising vessel. (12:42)
Learn to Sail - Basic Sail Trim #2 - Scenarios
The basics of sail trim #, 2 which includes different scenarios of different conditions. Also includes other bits of info for efficient sail trim. (12:15)
Learn To Sail - Points of Sail. A basic intro on courses to steer, true wind and apparent wind
Explaining the basic points of sail, true and apparent wind and other important tips for safe sailing recommended to start it from point 01:16...(12:08)
How to Heave to
A basic introduction on how to heave to - learning to sail - basic introduction to storm tactics - heave to principles (08:47)