TECNOSEAL ANSWERS - BERMUDA RIG: HISTORY AND FEATURES

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specifically from October 19th 2018, when the article dedicated to the motorsailers (which you can find here). Almost a year later, it seems right to correct this lack by going to dedicate today's article to one of the most used sailing configurations today: the Bermudian rig, also called Marconi rig.

Before we start, I remind you that at the following link you can find a thematic index of all the Tecnoseal Answers released until today.

Vela-Marconi-02
an example of a cutter with gaff rig

The Many Configurations of the Sails

First of all, since we're about to talk about a sail configuration, a review of the technical terms of this world can't hurt. You find them here. As you can imagine, there are not just one sail configuration, but several of them. Let's see the main ones together:

  • The square rig has, as the name suggests, a square shape, usually an isosceles trapezoid one. It is a configuration suitable for running downwind, but not suitable for ascending the wind. They are characteristic rigs of large sailing ships and usually take their name from the spar to which they are hoisted (like the famous master sail).
  • The gaff rig has a trapezoidal shape and extends aft of the masts. They are kept stretched between the boom and a suitable flagpole called gaff. It was once the most used sail configuration, but was largely replaced by the Bermuda rig except for some barquentines and schooners.
  • The Lateen rig is the other type of traditional sail configuration that has been largely replaced by the Bermuda rig (although it is currently coming back a little in the sloops). It is a triangular-shaped sail that is kept stretched between the boom and a diagonal antenna hoisted on the mast.
  • Lastly, the Bermuda rig developed in the Bermuda archipelago (from which it takes its name) starting from the Latin-rig. It is also called Marconi rig because the shape of the mast that arms this sail recalls, due to the numerous support cables required on larger boats, that of a wireless radio antenna invented by Guglielmo Marconi. It is a triangular sail fixed between the mast and the boom.

Vela-Marconi-03
a three-mast schooner with Bermuda rig of the Royal Navy (around 1831)

Birth of the Bermuda Rig

As mentioned above, the Bermuda rig developed in Bermuda from the Latin-ring between the 17th and 18th centuries. It seems that behind this invention there was a Bermudian of Dutch origin who was looking for a configuration capable of making boats, the main means of transport of the place, deal effectively with the windy waters of the archipelago of Bermuda. In fact, being the main wind direction from the West and being the islands arranged along this direction, the ability to sail upwind, ascending the wind itself, was vital.

This sail configuration was initially defined by the British as leg-of-mutton while in the Netherlands these sailing ships were known as bezaan jacht. The Bermuda rig began to grow in popularity in 1660, when the king Charles II of England was so impressed by a ship with this configuration that he obtained a copy of it as a gift (which he called Bezaan). In Bermuda, however, this sail had already been introduced for several decades. The British Captain John Smith reported that the Captain Nathaniel Butler, governor of Bermuda from 1619 to 1620, used a Dutch boat builder who had gained a huge local reputation thanks to this type of rig (for the rancor of its rivals). In 1684, after the dissolution of the Society of the Sommers Islands and the birth of a local maritime economy, the boats that used this rig began to be known as Bermuda sloop.

Vela-Marconi-04
a modern yawl with Bermuda rig

A Growing Popularity

In the 19th century, the sailing configuration of the Bermudian ships had largely eliminated the competition of square and gaff rigs, replacing them with mainsail and triangular staysails. The bermuda rig was the traditional solution for ships with two or more masts while it was not used much on single-mast boats because this should have been too high. Even the most solid wood masts were too heavy and not strong enough for this configuration. However, the trend completely changed when the boats started racing in the early 19th century. The turning point came in 1820, when the naval officer HG Hunt demonstrated in a public regatta that a single-mast sloop with Bermuda rig was definitely faster than the schooner he had used until that day.

The high speed given by the Bermuda rig on the sloops made these boats enormously popular in the 20th century, although a much less extreme version of the traditional Bermudian design was used, with masts much lower, shorter boom and often omitted bowsprit. The traditional version is now used mainly in specific competitions that take place in the Bermuda archipelago. The name Marconi rig for this configuration became popular in 1914 to define the large J-class racing yachts armed with Bermuda rigs. Some purists, even today, emphasize that the term Marconi rig is not a synonym of Bermuda rig, but indicate its use on J-class yachts.

Vela-Marconi-05
the typical configuration of the sails of a Bermuda sloop

Characteristics of the Marconi rig

The Bermuda rig consists of a triangular sail located aft of the mast. Its peak angle is fixed to the upper part of the mast while the clew angle is fixed to the base of the same. The tack angle is lastly fixed to the end of the boom which also regulates the foot of the sail. It usually serves as the mainsail of the mainmast or the main sail of one of the other masts of the boat. In some initial Bermudan vessel, as in the Spirit of Bermuda which is a reproduction of a 1830 schooner, the mainsail was fixed only to the mast and the deck, missing completely the boom. Traditional Bermudian hulls often also have additional sails for running downwind, such as spinnakers and staysails.

A sloop armament with a Bermuda rig and a single staysail is still known today as a Bermudian or Marconi sloop. The first term can also be used to refer to particular types of traditional Bermuda vessel, even if these are not equipped with Bermuda rigs. The main controls of a Bermuda sail are four and are:

  • the halyard used to hoist the sail
  • the outhaul used to stretch the foot of the sail at the end of the boom
  • the sheet used to haul the sail and orient it along with the boom
  • the vang used to pull the boom down when on a run
For more information on boat points of sail, please refer to this Tecnoseal Answers.


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