WHY square sails point better than sloops.

[CruiseN]

Because they look better. Seriously.

Are you familiar with American Football? Grid Iron.

Grid our longitude, latitudes. Iron grid below our waterline.
In stadium we watch spectators dance a Mexican Wave. Same on ocean grid. Each spectator a drop of water. Water doesn't move, the energy of the dance does, that is a wave.

Big blockers on defence, same is the shoulders of our sails. Spinnakers fill out quickly, square sails improve this with their measure along yardstick.
That is defence against the surge of energy.

We were lucky, lucky is how you prepare. On very calm day of very little none shifty energy, old man had us launch the spinnaker and for once we near dead run. Aim of practice; to flow the spinnaker such that the mains leach could flow the main. To learn how to sail was with light winds.
That point of balance is how we saw the benefits of square rigs.
They didn't have propeller engines. They had sail, they had energy. Storms never changed. The energy passes through. You have 3 choices. Hit the storm hard and use the storms energy to quickly move through the energy. Anchor and hide. Or prolong exposure to energy by running with the storm.
Having asked another stupid question regarding leading point of sail, it made sense. On our spinnaker boats, the spinnaker pole has the leading sail edge out far Infront. That's the leading edge of sail, that's the fulcrum that needs to be focused.
Well, square riggers have a jib, that must be the leading point of sail. Yes and no.
Because the squares are yardsticks up high and clear, they have a leading edge of sail. Before our era of stink engines, they were the safest because big broad blockers carrying big sticks could block the wind and they're big thrusters made of sail cloth. Down lower, experienced seamen knew the word 'BRACE' bracing the impact of pure high point thrust.
Jib also has a leading edge, cloth that looks like a modern mainsail has a trailing point array; a leach. Pretty sure helm took BRACE too and experienced seamen took jib,missen sail rudder. To get out of fierce energy by reducing time within fierce energy.

Weirdly, sloops go down wind better. Vessels broach because lots worry about the spinnaker yet need to trim mainsail. Spinnakers often assist mainsail trim by providing a torqued load to leach.

I'm lost to in this modern fantasy that is backwards because we were taught to think sloops go upwind whereas squares run. Squares reach everywhere but the point is a tiny missen leaching their thrust to provide a gorgeous..
We just backwards because when the wind grows, we needn't sail, just true fantasy with a stink engine instead.

Blown away too. Someday I'll learn how to sail.

Stuck on a plentiful planet named Earth, a moor on race disabled our Egyptian light sails, NASA reported an approaching galactic storm, do we have heavy tackle because we are going to need a strong BRACE.

Anyhow, that's why we sail light winds.. incase knowledge of skills are required soon after.
Trippers

[CruiseN]

Local square rigger is named 'One and All'

Sorta tells a tale with her name.
Pick a focus point and all brace that.
A leading edge of sail.

https://youtu.be/bkgGUkHtEsA

Can't imagine a heavy defence blocker running hard and Fast at the at time of need.

Also I'd rather a sloop, like a wide receiver, splice a gap with a great catch.

[Hudson Force]

'time to splice the main brace!

[CruiseN]

LoL
Yeah I don't know main.
I don't know Genoa.
I don't know brace.

Just reading arguments that square rigs can't point. They can point when gifted with energy. Nowadays maybe modern forecasts avoid much energy? Maybe engines a good enough ride?

All I knew was focused eye tickling to allow a focused leading edge using a spinnaker into the wind. Main splicing Spinnakers torque was great steerage. Genoa too but less so because shallow keelson had main taking care whereas aft plane was pretty firmly running was impression I gathered during gathering nothing besides an opposing the wind blocking luff.
Same Conditions! Nearer windward shore! We reduced and reduced and reduced yet without pace, COMFORT, as much vessel control. Difference of energy in same energy. Use it or lose it.
Them square rigs can sail REALLY well upwind but most of us seem to see them not bothering about performance because they simply do alright cruising along at their own pace although always ready to heave too.

Fair winds to you sir..

I'm lost in wow.. all them crew and their entire deck knows how to sail. Pretty fantastic aye. Some sort of yardstick. LoL

[AndyEss]

I sure hope your hallucinogen use is limited to time spent onshore in the company of good, responsible friends.

[ArlyB]

The reason Bermuda/Marconi rigs (modern fore-aft sails) as on the modern sloop, replaced square riggers is that they point higher than square rigged ships and the king's navy couldn't catch them.

[sanibel sailor]

flight of ideas...

[TrentePieds]

As a "native speaker" of a language other than English, let alone Australian and American, I've always enjoyed how tolerant these divers languages are of lack of vocabular precision. No wonder English, however grammatically corrupt, has become the world's lingua franca :-)!

I can hardly wait, now, for further illumination of the characteristics of the sundry kinds of sails.

Cheers :-)!

TP

[Martkimwat]

Many old square-riggers were lost on the rocks in various parts of the world because they were embayed in onshore winds and couldn't point high enough to sail out of the bay especially with the extra effect of onshore waves as well, add to that the fact they usually couldn't tack and had to ware-ship to go about, and they were on a hide into nothing. I believe some of the earlier catamarans had similar issues (not pointing very high and inability to pass through the wind in a short sea.)

[clakiep]

Please anyone remember that sloop sails have a higher aspect ratio - hight to width, or span to chord in aircraft wings - and therefore less induced drag for the generated lift, which is the key number for low angle of attack or upwind performance.

Capt. Claus - ocean tramp of the eighties

[Clivevon]

Originally Posted by AndyEss

I sure hope your hallucinogen use is limited to time spent onshore in the company of good, responsible friends.

Yeah...

[zstine]

Originally Posted by clakiep

Please anyone remember that sloop sails have a higher aspect ratio - hight to width, or span to chord in aircraft wings - and therefore less induced drag for the generated lift, which is the key number for low angle of attack or upwind performance.

Capt. Claus - ocean tramp of the eighties

there's no reason a square rigged boat can't have high aspect ratio. the Maltese Falcon has the foot of each sail connected to the yard arm of the one below it, Essentially making for one high aspect sail per mast. but you could have longer height to width ratios without all the yard arms

[sanibel sailor]

Square sail info from a master.

[MartinR]

The reason most square riggers do not point well is that it is not possible to brace the sails tight enough. A few ships can, and they point surprisingly well, for example the Norwegian school ship Christian Radich.

The aspect ratio of individual sails maybe low, but for a whole mast it is actually good. Of course, once it blows you reduce sail, the aspect ratio goes south, there is tremendous drag from all the - now useless - rigging and you can not point anymore and end up a wreck on a lee shore.

There will be a modern version of this rigging once Wallenius Lines new ship “Oceanbird” is built. This square rig does away with many of the drawbacks and might lead to a new era of sailing cargo ships.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by ArlyB

The reason Bermuda/Marconi rigs (modern fore-aft sails) as on the modern sloop, replaced square riggers is that they point higher than square rigged ships and the king's navy couldn't catch them.

The reason the triangular rig replaced gaff and square rigging for vessels of our size (20-60') is that they are faster racing and ultimately cheaper up front to build. In the long run the costs even out because it is my sense that marconi rigs are harder on sails and the total sails catches up because they require more sails over time.

For larger commercial vessels the economical choice is still between gaff and square rig and depends on the size of the vessel and how much upwind sailing is anticipated in service. Larger vessels needed to be square rigged otherwise the size of individual sails get too big. This is becoming somewhat alleviated by the advent of certain technology like roller furling being scaled up to industrial size.

Navies used fore and aft rigs for smaller vessels in certain uses but square rig was used on the largest vessels. While cloth technology was improving enough to consider larger fore and aft rig ships in the 1800s steam developed and sail went completely by the wayside for military use.