In sailing, a sheet is a line (or rope) used to control the moveable corner(s) of a sail.

Fore-and-aft Rigs

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Fore-and-aft-rigs comprise the vast majority of sailing vessels in use today, including effectively all dinghies and yachts. The sheet on a fore-and-aft sail controls the angle of the sail to the wind, and should be adjusted to keep the sail just filled. Most smaller boats use the Bermuda rig, which has two or three sets of sheets:

• The mainsheet is attached to the boom, and is used to control the mainsail.
• The jib sheet attaches to the clew of the jib, and controls it. The jib has a sheet on each side, only one of which (the leeward one) will be in use at one time.
• The spinnaker sheet attaches to the clew(s) of the spinnaker, if carried. A symmetrical spinnaker has two sheets, an "active" one and a "lazy" one, in the same way as a jib, but they are attached to the sail's two separate clews. On boats larger than around thirty feet, the spinnaker will also be fitted with guys, which are similar to sheets but control the pole instead of the sail. On smaller boats the lazy sheet is used as a guy.

On the smallest boats, a sheet is often a simple rope, pulled by hand; on larger boats, usually on the mainsheet, it is often a system using several blocks to provide mechanical advantage. At one time, headsail sheets on yachts also involved blocks, but the disadvantages of having large amounts of line and loose blocks free to move all over the forward part of the vessel mean that such systems have been almost universally replaced with single-line sheets holding immense forces but controlled by powerful winches.

Square Rig

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Square rigged vessels are much less common, and are usually large ships. Nevertheless, they too have sheets on the moveable corners of their square sails. Unlike fore-and-aft sheets, though, square-rig sheets do not control the angle of the sails (which is performed using braces); instead, they are used to haul the corners of the sails from their stowed positions down towards the tip of the yard below. They are then not adjusted significantly while sailing until the sail is to be handed (put away) again.

Three Sheets to the Wind

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Use of the term "three sheets to the wind" referring to a drunken person, is often thought to be a reference to this lines/ropes.

However, some claim the term “Three sheets to the wind” originated with the windmill and not the sailing world. A windmill typically has four arms or frames in which a sheet of canvas or sail could be attached by the miller to harness the wind. When the wind was light a sheet of canvas was attached to each of the four frames. If the wind was heavy only one canvas was used. If the wind was moderate two opposing sheets of canvas were used to keep the torque in balance. The millers never used just three sheets of canvas. They discovered that using three sheets would cause the building to gyrate uncontrollably and topple over, like a drunken sailor.

sailing vessels and rigging

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