There has been a noticeable development in the design of yacht mainsails: yacht sails with futuristic-looking, wide heads are increasingly being used. They are called squareheads or fatheads and can be seen on almost all modern high-tech yachts, such as the Volvo Ocean Race or the Vendée Globe. Almost all pure racing yachts use them, such as the 100-foot "Comanche" as the largest, or the Mini 6.50 class as the smallest; many sports boats such as Seascape or Saphire come with squareheads, as do modern sports catamarans, dinghies and foiling speedsters such as Motte or Quant 23. Even fixed sails, such as the wings of the current America's Cup catamarans, are wide and square at the top.
A squarehead mainsail offers decisive advantages over the pinhead, the triangular sail head, even for cruising sailors. YACHT was recently able to test this with two almost identical boats, the Saphire 27 Sport with an extremely flared squarehead and the cruise version with a slightly shorter mast and pinhead mainsail.
YACHT 21/2016 explains in detail why these sails work so well, how they are trimmed and what improvements cruising sailors can make.
