Bermuda rig

The traditional design as developed in Bermuda features very tall, raked masts, a long bowsprit, and may or may not have a boom.

This is the case on two of the three masts of the newly built Spirit of Bermuda, a replica of an 1830s British Royal Navy sloop-of-war.

The Dutch eventually modified the design by omitting the masts, with the yard arms of the lateens being stepped in thwarts.

Captain John Smith reported that Captain Nathaniel Butler, who was the governor of Bermuda from 1619 to 1622, employed the Dutch boat builder, Jacob Jacobsen,[11] one of the crew of a Dutch frigate which had been wrecked on Bermuda, who quickly established a leading position among Bermuda's boat makers, reportedly building and selling more than a hundred boats within the space of three years (to the resentment of many of his competitors, who were forced to emulate his designs).

[12][13] A poem published by John H. Hardie in 1671 described Bermuda's boats such: "With tripple corner'd Sayls they always float, About the Islands, in the world there are, None in all points that may with them compare.

[3][15] By the 1800s, the design of Bermudian vessels had largely dispensed with square topsails and gaff rig, replacing them with triangular main sails and jibs.

[3] The colony's lightweight Bermuda cedar vessels were widely prized for their agility and speed, especially upwind.

Bermudian work boats, mostly small sloops, were ubiquitous on the archipelago's waters in the 1800s, moving freight, people, and everything else about.

The rig was eventually adopted almost universally on small sailing craft in the 1900s, although as seen on most modern vessels it is very much less extreme than on traditional Bermudian designs, with lower, vertical masts, shorter booms, omitted bowsprits, and much less area of canvas.