Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Spinnaker
Summary
A spinnaker is a sail designed specifically for sailing off the wind on courses between a reach (wind at 90° to the course) to downwind (course in the same direction as the wind). Spinnakers are constructed of lightweight fabric, usually nylon, and are often brightly colored. They may be designed to perform best as either a reaching or a running spinnaker, by the shaping of the panels and seams. They are attached at only three points and said to be flown.
Some dictionaries suggest that the origin of the word could be traced to the first boat to commonly fly a spinnaker, a yacht called Sphinx, mispronounced as Spinx. Sphinx first set her spinnaker in the Solent in 1865, and the first recorded use of the word was in 1866 in the August edition of Yachting Calendar and Review (p. 84). In addition, the term may have been influenced by the spanker, originally a gaff rigged fore-and-aft sail.
Another suggestion is that the idea for the sail was conceived in 1865 by William Gordon, owner of the racing yacht Niobe. He wanted to name the sail after his yacht but a crewman's comment, "Now there's a sail to make her spin" became "spin maker" which developed into the commonly accepted term spinnaker. Gordon was widely known in the yachting world of the time as "Spinnaker Gordon".
It has been pointed out, however, that the skippers of Thames sailing barges also used the term spinnaker for their jib staysails. Unlike the other, tanned sails of these boats, the spinnakers were usually of white color. It has thus been suggested that the term could be "connected with the obsolete word spoon, meaning to run before the wind (cf. spindrift)." Early usage of the verb to spoon can be traced back to the 16th century; the change from spoon to spin in the term spindrift is attributed to a local Scottish pronunciation. According to Merriam Webster's dictionary, however, spindrift derives from a local Scottish pronunciation of speen (not spoon), meaning "to drive before a strong wind."
According to Merriam-Webster's etymology, the origin of the word spinnaker is simply unknown.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.