Free Tall Ships Guide

FREE 50 page PDF Guide to Tall Ships and Tall Ship Races

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Learn about Tall Ships and how you can identify different types, learn the names of the sails. Spot Wildlife and understand the watch system. It includes photos of tall ships you can sail on, diagrams and tips how to get the best out of your first tall ship voyage. Written by Adam Purser - founder and director of Classic Sailing.

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Tall Ship Guide Chapters and Sample Text

List of 14 Tall Ship Types

Fully Rigged Ship

Four Masted Barque

Three Masted Barque

Four Masted Barquentine

Three Masted Barquentine

Main Mast Barquentine (Xebec Polacre)

See the Free Tall Ships Guide for all 14 types

Tall Ship Types in details

1 Fully Rigged Tall Ship

A fully rigged tall ship has square sails on three or more masts. This is the pinnacle of tall ships, some would argue it is the only type of proper tall ship. Others go even further and say the only ships in the world are fully rigged tall ships. If that were true it would mean that there are under two dozen ships afloat today. Meanings change and today the term ͚tall ship͛ is now generic and applied to any traditionally rigged vessel.

Tall Ships Race Classification System A, B, C and D

Class A

Class A is all square rigged vessels, such as, barque, barquentine, brig or ship rigged, and all other vessel more than 40 metres Length Overall (LOA), regardless of rig.

Sail types

Headsails - sails in front of the foremast - can include the forestaysail and all the jibs.

Jibs - headsails attached to the bowsprit.

Staysails - any sail that is hoisted up a stay except stays from the bowsprit.

See the fully illustrated Free Tall Ships Guide for all Tall Ship Terms

Parts of Ship

Bowsprit - the pointy bit out the front.

Foremast - mast in front of all the others

Main mast - mast behind the Foremast

Mizzen mast - mast behind the Foremast.

More masts than three give rise to a variety of names, Jiggermast,

Middle mast, Driver mast, Pusher mast, Spanker.

Masts and Sails of a Tall Ship

Bowsprit - the pointy bit out the front.

Foremast - mast in front of all the others

Main mast - mast behind the Foremast

Mizzen mast - mast behind the Foremast.

More masts than three give rise to a variety of names, Jiggermast,

Middle mast, Driver mast, Pusher mast, Spanker.

Parts of a Square Sail

Parts of a square sail – many of these terms are also used on other shaped sails but the square sail is considered the master sail.

Tack – The top outer corners

This is an important term both historically and today because it tells you

what ͚tack͛ your sailing ship is on.

Whichever ͚tack͛ of the square sail is the furthest forward is the side the wind is coming from,

form this picture the ͚starboard tack͛ is marginally forward of the port tack,

so this ship ͚Europa͛ is on the ͚starboard tack͛. That’s the origin of why we say

a sailing vessel is on a port or starboard ͚tack͛.

See the fully illustrated Free Tall Ships Guide for full Masts and Sails of a Tall Ship

Parts of a head sail

Head

Tack

Luff

And we give you a clue about the rest

Parts of a Gaff and Gaff Topsail sail.

Peak

Gaff Boom

Head

Throat, the corner by the mast

See the fully illustrated Free Tall Ships Guide for full Gaff details

How to climb the mast.

Where Can I Climb the Rigging on a Tall Ship?

On Tall Ship voyages where you will be encouraged to climb the rigging as part of your job as working tall ship crew. It is never compulsory and you will have more than one chance to try it. We think to climb aloft on a windjammer at sea is one of life's natural highs.

The adrenalin buzz is huge, even if you have done it before, and the amount of courage to work aloft in any weather has not been diminished much over the centuries by the introduction of modern safety harnesses.

Watch Keeping Explained.

The Core of Watch Keeping Tasks requires constant attention to the helm, keeping a lookout, setting the sails for the wind and monitoring the safety of the ship.

The task you will be performing with training and assistance are steering the ship, keeping a lookout, helping put up and take down the sails and setting the sails to catch the wind.

See the fully illustrated Free Tall Ships Guide for full details of Watchkeeping.

How to Spot More Wildlife at Sea.

On the sea this technique will help you spot more wildlife and other interesting things in the sea and sky. It is regarded as best practice for seafarers who call it ͚Lookout duty͛.