Spritsail
![Diagram of a four-cornered spritsail](/Images/godic/202502/12/Spritsaildiagram4715.jpg")
![Spritsails appeared in the 2nd century BC in the Aegean Sea on small Greek craft.[2] Here a spritsail used on a Roman merchant ship (3rd century AD).](/Images/godic/202502/12/Museum_für_Antike_Schifffahrt,_Mainz_02._Spritsail4715.jpg")
![Thames sailing barges. The barge in the distance has all sail set, mainsail (the spritsail), topsail, foresail, topmast staysail and mizzen.](/Images/godic/202502/12/Thames_Barges-Canthusus4716.jpg")
![Boat on Padma River, Bangladesh](/Images/godic/202502/12/Boat_Sailing_up_Padma_River_Bangladesh4716.jpg")
The spritsail is a form of three or four-sided, fore-aft sail and its rig. Unlike the gaff where the head hangs from a spar along its edge, this rig supports the leech of the sail by means of a diagonal spar or spars named a sprit. The forward end of the sprit spar is attached to the mast but bisects the face of the sail, with the after end of the sprit spar attaching to the peak and/or the clew of the sail. It is said to be the ancestor from which the common gaff rig evolved in 16th-century Holland. Historically, spritsails were the first fore-and-aft rigs, appearing in Greco-Roman navigation in the 2nd century BC.