Cutter Rig
Ketch
Small Schooner
A close study of the fore-and-aft rigs used along our coast will show what devices have been resorted to in order to remedy this defect. In the first place, there was the subdividing of the mainsail—making a three-master; then a gradual reduction of the spanker, until on many of our three-masted schooners it is to-day the smallest of the three lower sails. At the same time the lower masts have been shortened and the hoists of the topsails increased. On the great lakes the fresh-water man has reduced his spanker to almost the proportions of a ketch's mizzen, the necessity of more constant jibing having forced him to this change. But alter as you please, the fore-and-after is still a bad runner when winds blow strong and seas run high.
Our modern racing schooners are a particularly bad type. They are really large sloops with a fake foresail, this latter bit of canvas being more ornamental than useful. A good specimen of the rig proper are some of our large cruising schooners, with wide-footed foresails and short main booms. The pilot-boat and fisherman rigs are also excellent types.