Concept
The crab claw sail is a fore-and-aft triangular sail with spars along upper and lower edges. The crab claw sail was developed in Island Southeast Asia some time before 2000 BCE. It went on to be used in many traditional Austronesian cultures in Island Southeast Asia, Micronesia, Island Melanesia, Polynesia, and Madagascar. Due to its extraordinary performance and ease of operation, it has also become very popular in modern sport sailing. It is sometimes known as the Oceanic lateen or the Oceanic sprit, even though it is not restricted to Oceania, is neither a lateen sail nor a spritsail, and has an independent older origin. Crab-claw sails were invented somewhere in Island Southeast Asia by at least 2000 BCE. It is likely that triangular sails supported by a prop-type mast were developed by the populations that preceded Austronesian seafarers. The configuration of mast and sail is suggested to be an obvious solution to raising a wet sail made from a relatively weak mat material. It spread with the Austronesian migration to Micronesia, Island Melanesia, Madagascar, and Polynesia. It may have also caused the unique development of outrigger boat technology due to the necessity for stability once crab claw sails were attached to small watercraft. Crab claw sails can be used for double-canoe (catamaran), single-outrigger (on the windward side), or double-outrigger boat configurations, in addition to monohulls. Crab claw sails are rigged fore-and-aft and can be tilted and rotated relative to the wind. They evolved from "V"-shaped perpendicular square sails (a "double sprit") in which the two spars converge at the base of the hull. The simplest form of the crab claw sail (also with the widest distribution) is composed of a triangular sail supported by two light spars (sometimes erroneously called "sprits") on each side. They were originally mastless, and the entire assembly was taken down when the sails were lowered. There are several distinct types of crab claw rigs, but unlike western rigs, they do not have fixed conventional names.
Julien Dominique Claude Deparday
