Main Page

Welcome to the explain xkcd wiki!
We have an explanation for all 3202 xkcd comics, and only 60 (1.9%) are incomplete. Help us finish them!

 Go to this explanation

Latest comic

Sailing Rigs

|< < Prev #3193 (January 12, 2026)

Title text: I wanted to make the world's fastest yawl, so I made the aft sail bigger, but apparently that means it's not a yawl anymore! It's a real ketch-22.

|< < Prev Random Explanation

Explanation

This comic shows the side profiles of a variety of different sailing boat/ship rigs, not all of which are real. The first six which are listed are real, as well as the tenth, but none of the others are. A Flettner rotor (shown in the tenth one) is a cylinder with disc end plates which is spun along its long axis, generating force at a right angle to the direction of the wind.

The title text is a pun on a Catch-22, a no-win situation in which the thing needed to succeed would cause it not to succeed or not to be necessary. For instance, "the only way to qualify for a loan is to prove to the bank that you do not need a loan."

Transcript

---

        View comic discussion

New here?

Last 7 days (Top 10)

Rank Score Pages Changes Username 1 23 18 24 TheusafBOT 2 21 13 31 FaviFake 3 14 12 13 BunsenH 4 8 3 10 Elizium23 5 8 4 8 Maxwell Jackson 6 8 3 9 Coconut Galaxy 7 7 3 8 Kynde 8 7 7 7 Natg19 9 7 4 6 Barry Margolin 10 4 4 4 R128

Lots of people contribute to make this wiki a success. Many of the recent contributors above have just joined. You can do it too! Create your account here.

You can read a brief introduction about this wiki at explain xkcd. Feel free to create an account and contribute to the wiki! We need explanations for xkcd comics, characters, What If? articles, and everything in between. If it is referenced in an xkcd comic, it should be here.

• If you're new to wiki editing, see the explain xkcd:Editor FAQ for a specific guidance to this wiki and the more general help on how to edit wiki pages. There's also a handy wikicode cheatsheet.

• Discussion about the wiki itself happens at the Community portal.

• You can browse the comics from the list of all comics or by navigating the category tree at Category:Comics.

• The incomplete explanations are listed here. Feel free to help out by expanding them!

Rules

Don't be a jerk!

There are a lot of comics that don't have set-in-stone explanations; feel free to put multiple interpretations in the wiki page for each comic.

If you want to talk about a specific comic, use its discussion page.

Please only submit material directly related to xkcd and, of course, only submit material that can legally be posted and freely edited. Off-topic or other inappropriate content is subject to removal or modification at admin discretion, and users who repeatedly post such content will be blocked.

If you need assistance from an admin, post a message to the Admin requests board.