Ship - Sails, Rigging, Hull: The move to the pure sailing ship came with small but steadily increasing technical innovations that more often allowed ships to sail with the wind behind them. Sails changed from a large square canvas suspended from a single yard (top spar), to complex arrangements intended to pivot on the mast depending on the direction and force of the wind. Instead of being driven solely by the wind direction, ships could “sail into the wind” to the extent that the course taken by a ship became the product of a resolution of forces (the actual wind direction and the objective course