A Schooner Sail Plan

Three Masted Schooner Trinovante

The following sail plans show how the schooner Trinovante might reduce sail as the wind increases. A schooner sail plan has many options so we may not do things in this order.

Depending on wind direction and sea conditions various sail combinations will be used. Factors to be taken into consideration include

• The general trend of the wind – is it increasing or decreasing?
• The assessment of the weather forecast – is there a risk of squally for instance?
• The abilities of the crew.
• If it’s day or night.
• The sea state.
• Whether we’ve just made a cup of tea.
• How quickly we want to get to our destination.
• and so on…

There are no hard and fast rules but a good general rule of thumb would be to get sail off when you first think of it. Also remember that most people can put a sail up but it’s getting it off that counts.

In practice, unless Trinovante is racing in the Tall Ships Race, we don’t tend to do a lot of reefing, we just drop whole sails.

You can see more of how this three masted rig works in the Learn To Sail A Schooner Articles by John, the skipper of Trinovante.