It takes teamwork to sail a tall ship. Women and girls are offered a unique maritime learning experience in the Sisters Under Sail program aboard the tall ship Unicorn, a gaff-rigged schooner.

The pensive and meticulous routine of rigging a boat before sailing is the best time to get into the flow.

The business' namesake, John Beetle, built the first "Beetle Cat" in New Bedford 100 years ago as a way for children to learn the skill of mastering a gaff-rigged working boat.

There is also a Friendship sloop that is gaff-rigged with multiple headsails and a pronounced bowsprit. Modern-day yawls are also fore and aft-rigged boats however they have two masts.

Then Martel was sailing. With his wife and his sons, the family learned how to handle a big boat with two jibs, a big gaff-rigged main and a smaller gaff-rigged mizzen sail at the back of the boat.

The Hawaiian Chieftain is a 75 foot tall, 104 foot long (from stern to bow sprit) gaff-rigged topsail ketch. Lady Washington, a two-masted brig, stands 89 feet tall, with a 112 feet overall length.

A different world has emerged since Sheehan brought his red-sailed English gaff-rigged cutter past the towers two springs ago with this wife, Kathy, and 12-year-old stepdaughter, Ashley.

Tech mechanical engineering students Raylynn Driskell and Krystal Klietz designed and built a 11-foot gaff-rigged cutter sailboat for the Montana Techxpo.