You often hear these terms but what do they refer to?
These are terms to describe sails used in different situations.
Working Sails
Working sails are “the normal sails”. These are your mainsail and your regular headsail. The headsail type doesn’t matter: Genoa, Jib, Staysail, Yankee, it doesn’t matter.
These sails are used when the winds are present all the way up to when the winds get strong you need to start reefing.
Storm Sails
When the wind picks up, you start to reef your working sails. Reefing makes your sails smaller but these are still your working sails (even though they are smaller). When the wind gets too strong, you then switch out your working sails for your storm sails.
These sails are your trysail and storm jib. These small sails are specially made for high winds and horrible conditions! The cloth will be incredibly heavy and the stitching will be strong and overdone.
Light Air Sails
The polar opposite of your storm sail are your Light Air Sails. These sails are made of very light nylon that will fly in the lightest of breeze. The conditions for these sails will be from “No Wind to less than 10 knots of breeze”.
Sails that fall into this category are spinnakers, drifters, and nylon mainsails.
Hopefully this cleared up some questions you might have about sail types and the terms Working, Storm, and Light Air!
