Barquentine

This article is about the ship. For the fictional character in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels, see Barquentine (Gormenghast).
Barquentine

Belgian barquentine Mercator
Type Sailing rig
Place of origin Northwest Europe and America

A barquentine or schooner barque (alternatively "barkentine" or "schooner bark") is a sailing vessel with three or more masts; with a square rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged main, mizzen and any other masts.

Modern barquentine sailing rig

Barquentine sail plan

While a full-rigged ship is square-rigged on all three masts, and the barque is square-rigged on the foremast and main, the barquentine extends the principle by making only the foremast square-rigged.[1] The advantages of a smaller crew, good performance before the wind and the ability to sail relatively close to the wind while carrying plenty of cargo made it a popular rig at the end of the 19th century.

Today, barquentines are popular with modern tall ship and sail training operators as their suite of mainly fore-and-aft sails can be operated with ease and efficiency, but the single mast of square sails offers long distance speed and dramatic appearance in port.

Origin of the term

The term "barquentine" is 17th century in origin, formed from "barque" in imitation of "brigantine", a two-masted vessel square-rigged only on the forward mast, and apparently formed from the word brig.[Note 1][2]

Historic and modern examples

Painting of the Mercator by Yasmina

Notes

  1. Although in fact the term "brig" was a shortening of "brigantine", and for much of the 16th to 18th century the two terms were synonymous.

References

  1. "Sailing ship rigs, an infosheet guide to classic sailing rigs". Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Archived from the original on 28 December 2010. Retrieved 2011-01-15.
  2. T F Hoad, ed. (1993). Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-19-283098-2.
  3. "Thor-Heyerdahl". Segelschiff Thor Heyerdahl gemeinnützige Fördergesellschaft mbH. Retrieved 2012-12-27.
  4. "Svanen web page". Sail Australia. Retrieved 2013-02-22.

External links

Look up barquentine in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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