A headsail is any sail set forward of the foremost mast of a sailing vessel. The most common headsails are the jib and its larger cousin the genoa, but there are a large number of others, such as the staysail on a cutter. A sail is a surface intended to generate thrust by being placed in a wind; basically it is a vertically oriented wing. ... mizzen mast, mainmast and foremast Grand Turk The mast of a sailing ship is a tall vertical pole which supports the sails. ... Sailing vessel can refer to: sailing ship sailboat ice boat This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... See also: Jib (television) A jib is a triangular staysail set ahead of the foremost mast of a sailing boat. ... A genoa (pronounced like the city, or as jenny) is a type of large jib-sail used on bermuda rigged craft, commonly the single-masted sloop and twin-masted yawl, less frequently on a ketch. ... A staysail is a fore-and-aft rigged sail whose luff is affixed to a stay running forward (and most often but not always downwards) from a mast to the deck, the bowsprit or to another mast. ... For other meanings, see cutter (baseball), cutter (tool) and self-harm. ...
Some headsails can only be flown on specific points of sailing, such as the spinnaker, which is only flown when sailing downwind, and the gennaker, used when sailing a course between downwind and close hauled. Wooden sailing boat Sailing is the skillful art of controlling the motion of a sailing ship or smaller boat, across a body of water using wind as the source of power. ... A spinnaker is a special type of sail that is designed specifically for sailing downwind (with the wind behind the boat). ... Windward is the direction from which a present wind is blowing. ... A gennaker is a downwind sail that can be described as a cross between a genoa and a spinnaker. ...