Types of Sailing Boats
From a two-metre training dinghy to an ocean-going yacht, sailing boats come in a lot of shapes. This guide explains the main types in plain English, lists the sailing dinghy classes you will actually meet at a UK club, and helps you work out which kind to learn on.
In brief
Start with four useful distinctions
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A dinghy is light and responsive. A keelboat uses ballast for stability.
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A yacht is a larger keelboat with accommodation for cruising or racing.
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A catamaran has two hulls, stays flatter and usually needs more room.
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For a beginner, the best boat is normally the training boat used by a nearby club.
Visual guide
Boat shape changes the experience
Compare size, stability, crew, water and rig before deciding what to try.
Follow the marked routeDinghies and keelboats: the split that matters
You can slice sailing boats a dozen ways, but the one that matters to a beginner is simple: is it a dinghy or a keelboat?
A dinghy is a small, light boat with no ballast. It stays upright because the crew balances it with their weight, which means it can, and will, capsize. That sounds like a drawback but it is exactly why dinghies teach you to sail so fast: you feel every gust and every steering mistake immediately. Most people in the UK learn in one.
A keelboat has a heavy, fixed keel bolted under the hull. That ballast keeps the boat upright and stops it capsizing in normal conditions. Keelboats are bigger, heavier and more forgiving, and a keelboat with a cabin and berths is what most people mean by a yacht. They are the boats for day sailing, cruising and holidays.
Almost everything else, the rig, the number of hulls, the keel shape, sits underneath that first split. Get the dinghy-versus-keelboat idea straight and the rest falls into place.
The RYA small boat course guide uses the same practical split between dinghy, multihull and keelboat learning routes.
Monohull or multihull?
A monohull has one hull. It is the classic sailing boat shape, and the vast majority of dinghies and yachts you will see are monohulls. Stability comes from the hull shape and, on a keelboat, from the ballast keel.
A multihull spreads its weight across more than one hull. A catamaran has two, a trimaran has three. Multihulls are wider, so they stay flatter and give you more deck and cabin space, and they can be very fast. The trade-off is that they need more room to manoeuvre and berth, and a capsized multihull does not right itself the way a dinghy does. There are beginner-friendly catamarans, but at UK clubs most learning happens on monohulls.
Sailing dinghies and the UK classes you will meet
Dinghies come as single-handers (sailed by one person) and double-handers (two, sometimes three). Instead of a fixed keel they use a centreboard or daggerboard that drops down through the hull and retracts for launching and beaching. UK dinghy sailing is organised around classes: standardised designs that race against each other, so a club will often sail two or three specific classes rather than a random mix of boats.
You do not need to memorise these. But it helps to recognise the names, because the class a club sails tells you what kind of sailing it does. Here are the ones you are most likely to come across.
| Class | What it is | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Optimist | The main junior trainer worldwide. A small single-hander for children up to about 15. | Junior single-hander |
| Topper | A tough 3.4m single-hander and long-running youth class, common at clubs for teenagers and beginners. | Youth single-hander |
| ILCA (formerly Laser) | The single-handed Olympic dinghy, now officially the ILCA. Three rig sizes (ILCA 4, 6 and 7) suit different weights. | Single-hander, youth to Olympic |
| RS Tera / RS Feva | Modern plastic junior boats. The Tera is a single-hander that grows with the child; the Feva is a youth double-hander with a spinnaker. | Junior and youth |
| Mirror | A classic, affordable two-person family and junior boat with tens of thousands built. Can also be single-handed. | Family double-hander |
| Wayfarer | A roomy, stable two-person dinghy used for training, cruising and racing. A common teaching boat. | Training and cruising |
| GP14 / Enterprise / Solo | Long-established club racing classes. The GP14 and Enterprise are two-person; the Solo is a single-hander with a big mainsail. | Club racing |
| 420 / 470 / 29er | Performance double-handers with trapeze and spinnaker for youth and adult racing. The 470 is an Olympic class. | Performance racing |
| RS Aero | A modern, very light single-hander with a carbon rig. A popular performance one-design. | Single-hander racing |
This is a practical club-level guide, not a complete register. Check the RYA national class list, then use a club's own website or its directory profile to see what it sails.
Keelboats, daysailers and cruising yachts
Once you move up to a ballasted keel, boats tend to be grouped by what they are for rather than by a strict class.
A daysailer or keelboat is a small, stable boat for afternoons on the water, often without a cabin or with only a basic one. A cruising yacht adds proper accommodation, a galley and berths, so you can stay aboard overnight or for a holiday. A bluewater cruiser is a heavier, stronger yacht built for long ocean passages. A racer is stripped down and optimised for speed, while a racer-cruiser tries to do both, which is what a lot of club yachts are.
Keel shape varies too, and in the tidal UK it matters. A deep fin keel is efficient but needs depth. Bilge keels, with two shallower keels, let a boat sit upright on the mud when the tide goes out, which is why they are common on drying moorings. Lifting keels and centreboards give you the best of both by retracting for shallow water.
Rig types in plain English
The rig is the arrangement of masts and sails. You do not need the detail to start, but the words come up constantly.
A sloop has one mast, a mainsail behind it and one headsail in front. The headsail may be a jib or genoa. This simple and efficient rig is common on dinghies and yachts. A cutter uses two headsails, which makes each one smaller and easier to handle.
A ketch and a yawl both have a second, shorter mast near the back. This spreads the sail area across more sails. A schooner has two or more masts, with the taller mast further back.
Many small dinghies use a cat rig. It has one mast and one sail, with no headsail. It is one of the simplest rigs to learn.
Which type should a beginner start with?
For most people the answer is a dinghy, and specifically whatever dinghy your local club teaches in. A stable two-person training dinghy like a Wayfarer or a Mirror lets an instructor sit in with you and gives you a forgiving platform to make your first mistakes on. You learn the core skills faster in a dinghy than in anything else.
Start with a keelboat or yacht if your goal is cruising and holidays rather than hands-on racing, or if a dinghy is not practical for you. An RYA Start Yachting or Competent Crew course gets you sailing on a cruising yacht without owning one.
The one thing not to do is buy a boat first. Learn on club and training-centre boats, work out what kind of sailing you actually enjoy, and only then think about buying. Plenty of people never buy at all, and sail happily on club boats for years.
For the full beginner walkthrough, including how sailing works and the RYA course pathway, read our guide to learning to sail.
Run the club rather than sail at it? See how SailHQ handles records for dinghy clubs and yacht clubs.
Find a club that sails your kind of boat
Browse the UK sailing club directory to see which clubs are near you and what they sail, from junior dinghy fleets to keelboat racing and cruising.
Common questions
A dinghy is small, light and has no ballast, so it relies on the crew's weight for stability and can capsize. A keelboat has a heavy, fixed keel that keeps it upright in normal conditions, so it does not capsize the way a dinghy does. Dinghies teach the fundamentals fastest; keelboats are more comfortable and better for longer trips.
Most people learn on a small, stable training dinghy such as a Wayfarer or a Mirror, or on a modern single-hander once they have the basics. Stable two-person dinghies are forgiving and let an instructor sit in with you. The easiest boat is really the one your local club uses for its beginner courses.
Every yacht is a sailing boat, but not every sailing boat is a yacht. In UK usage a yacht is a larger keelboat with a cabin and accommodation, used for cruising or racing. A small open dinghy is a sailing boat but would not normally be called a yacht.
Most UK beginners learn on a monohull dinghy because that is what clubs and training centres use. Catamarans are wide, stable and fast, and there are beginner-friendly cats, but they behave differently and are less common at entry level. Learn the fundamentals on whatever your club offers first.
The most common configuration is a Bermudan sloop: a single-masted monohull with one mainsail and one headsail. Most cruising yachts and a large share of dinghies use this rig because it is simple, efficient and easy to handle.
For most people, a dinghy at a local club, because it responds instantly and teaches the fundamentals quickly. If your goal is cruising holidays, learning on a yacht through an RYA Start Yachting or Competent Crew course is also a good route. Use the club directory to find a club near you.
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