A screecher is a sail that combines the features of a spinnaker and a reacher. Its similarity with a spinnaker is that it is not attached to a

stay Stay may refer to: Places * Stay, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the US Law * Stay of execution, a ruling to temporarily suspend the enforcement of a court judgment * Stay of proceedings, a ruling halting further legal process in a tri ...

along its luff, and typically has a slightly larger curvature than a

genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of ...

. Luff shape and tension is maintained by the

halyard In sailing, a halyard or halliard is a line (rope) that is used to hoist a ladder, sail, flag or yard. The term ''halyard'' comes from the phrase "to haul yards". Halyards, like most other parts of the running rigging, were classically made of ...

and a bolt rope which is woven into the sail itself, and it is this stiff tensioned rope which allows the sail to be furled on itself. In addition, many screechers are gybed by allowing the sail to fly free and pass in front of the bolt rope and invert, much in the same way that an asymmetrical spinnaker is gybed. Tacking with a screecher may require furling and re-setting. The similarity with a genoa is that it is typically a white sail, and the clews always overlap the mast.

References

Sailing rigs and rigging {{sailing-stub