Rigging styles

There are a number of ways in which sails can be set. When a boat has more masts styles can even be mixed. The main styles are:

Gaffed rigging: in the age of riveted steel barges this was the most common style in the Netherlands and it's considered as proper old hulls restoration. Before it (in the age of wooden tjalken and aaken) a sprit rigging was more likely to be used. A gaffed sail is trapezoidal in shape. Its larger parallel sides is held by a spar called boom, its upper part is attached to a short spar called gaff.

Sprit rigging: a sprit sail is also trapezoidal in shape and has a boom attached to its foot (lower side of the sail) but it's kept up by a long diagonal spar called sprit. The two parallel sides are vertical and the shorter side is attached to the mast. This way a triangular free space remains available for a so-called topsail. Topsails are quadrangular, too, although when seen from a distance they seem to be triangular. This rigging style was the usual rigging for Dutch barges until gaffed rigging became popular, in the late XIX century.