Types of sails and layouts

A traditional modern yacht is technically called a "Bermuda sloop" (sometimes a "Bermudan sloop"). A sloop is any boat that has a single mast and usually a single headsail (generally a jib) in addition to the mainsail (Bermuda rig but c.f. Friendship sloop). A cutter (boat) also has a single mast, set further aft than a sloop and more than one headsail. Additionally, Bermuda sloops only have a single sail behind the mast. Other types of sloops are gaff-rigged sloops and lateen sloops. Gaff-rigged sloops have quadrilateral mainsails with a gaff (a small boom) at their upper edge (the "head" of the sail). Gaff-rigged vessels may also have another sail, called a topsail, above the gaff. Lateen sloops have triangular sails with the upper edge attached to a gaff, and the lower edge attached to the boom, and the boom and gaff are attached to each other via some type of hinge. It is also possible for a sloop to be square rigged (having large square sails like a Napoleonic Wars-era ship of the line). Note that a "sloop of war", in the naval sense, may well have more than one mast, and is not properly a sloop by the modern meaning.
If a boat has two masts, it may be a schooner, a ketch, or a yawl, if it is rigged fore-and-aft on all masts. A schooner may have any number of masts provided the second from the front is the tallest (called the "main mast"). In both a ketch and a yawl, the foremost mast is tallest, and thus the main mast, while the rear mast is shorter, and called the mizzen mast. The difference between a ketch and a yawl is that in a ketch, the mizzen mast is forward of the rudderpost (the axis of rotation for the rudder), while a yawl has its mizzen mast behind the rudderpost. In modern parlance, a brigantine is a vessel whose forward mast is rigged with square sails, while her after mast is rigged fore-and-aft. A brig is a vessel with two masts both rigged square.
As one gets into three or more masts the number of combinations rises and one gets barques, barquentines, and full rigged ships.
A spinnaker is a large, full sail that is only used when sailing off wind either reaching or downwind, to catch the maximum amount of wind.

Sailing by high altitude wind power

SkySails is sailing freighter ships. Speedsailor Dave Culp strongly introduced his OutLeader kite sail for speedsailing. Malcolm Phillips invents an advanced sailing technique using high altitude kites and kytoon.

Rigid foils

With modern technology, "wings", that is rigid sails, may be used in place of fabric sails. An example of this would be the International C-Class Catamaran Championship and the yacht USA 17 that won the 2010 America's Cup. Such rigid sails are typically made of thin plastic fabric held stretched over a frame.See also AC72 wing-sail catamarans which competed in the 2013 America's Cup.

Alternative wind-powered vessels

Some non-traditional rigs capture energy from the wind in a different fashion and are capable of feats that traditional rigs are not, such as sailing directly into the wind. One such example is the wind turbine boat, also called the windmill boat, which uses a large windmill to extract energy from the wind, and a propeller to convert this energy to forward motion of the hull. A similar design, called the autogyro boat, uses a wind turbine without the propellor, and functions in a manner similar to a normal sail. A more recent (2010) development is a cart that uses wheels linked to a propeller to "sail" dead downwind at speeds exceeding wind speed.

Kitesurfing and windsurfing

Kitesurfing and windsurfing are other forms of sailing.