Schooner
A fore-and-aft rigged vessel with two or more masts.
A schooner is a sailing ship with two or more masts, all rigged fore-and-aft, and its foremast is usually shorter than its mainmast. Common types are gaff-rigged and staysail schooners; topsail schooners add a square topsail on the foremast, while Bermuda and junk rigs are uncommon.
Quick Facts
- Earliest known illustration
- 1600, depicting a yacht owned by the mayors of Amsterdam, drawn by Rool
- Earliest known british-built schooner
- Royal Transport, launched 1695 at Chatham
- Introduction of three-masted schooners
- Around 1800
- Transatlantic record holder
- Atlantic, 1905 Kaiser's Cup race
Facts from the source article.
History
The schooner's exact beginnings are hazy, but Dutch marine painters were depicting them by the early 1600s. The earliest known image, from 1600, shows a yacht owned by Amsterdam's mayors, drawn by the artist Rool. Other Dutch examples appear from 1638, and a vessel in New Amsterdam is recorded in 1627. Works by Van de Velde and an engraving of the Thames at Lambeth from 1697 indicate the rig was common in both England and Holland by the late 17th century. A large British schooner, the Royal Transport, was launched at Chatham in 1695. The design was further refined in British North America from around 1713, and during the 1700s and 1800s, schooners became a favorite for coastal trade in what is now New England and Atlantic Canada, prized for their speed and versatility. Three-masted versions appeared around 1800. Schooners served many roles. Their strong windward ability made them useful for privateers, pirates, blockade runners, slave ships, small naval craft, pilot boats, and opium clippers. Packet boats, built for fast passenger and goods transport, were often schooners, as were fruit schooners that made quick runs from the Azores to Britain. From roughly 1880 to 1920, the United States built very large schooners with five or more masts for bulk cargo like coal and timber. In yachting, schooners dominated the early America's Cup races. The fishing schooners of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland were especially renowned, and it was along the North American eastern seaboard that the term "schooner" first became a specific vessel classification. In merchant service, their ease of handling in tight spaces and need for smaller crews compared to square-rigged ships boosted their popularity, especially in the 1800s. Some worked deep-sea routes. In British home waters, schooners often had hulls built to sit on the bottom in drying harbors or unload on open beaches. The last of these once-common traders had stopped operating by the mid-20th century.
Rig types
The rig is rarely found on a hull of less than 50 feet LOA, and small schooners are generally two-masted. In the two decades around 1900, larger multi-masted schooners were built in New England and on the Great Lakes with four, five, six, or even seven masts. Schooners were traditionally gaff-rigged, but modern vessels tend to be Bermuda rigged or occasionally junk-rigged. Two-masted schooners display a variety of sails filling the gaps between them, such as a gaff sail on the foremast or a main staysail, often with a fisherman staysail. Most have a bowsprit, though some were built without one. Specific types include the Grand Banks fishing schooner, which includes a gaff topsail on the main mast and a fisherman's staysail; in winter topmasts and their upper sails are taken down. The topsail schooner includes a square topsail on the foremast, to which may be added a topgallant; a version with raked masts known as the Baltimore Clipper was popular in the early 1800s. Four- to seven-masted schooners spread sail area over many smaller sails, used for coastal trade on the Atlantic coast of North America, the West Indies, South America, and some trans-Atlantic voyages. The tern schooner, a three-masted type common between 1880 and 1920, had three masts of equal height and no square sails; Wawona, the largest of this type built, sailed on the West Coast of the United States from 1897 to 1947.
Uses
Schooners hauled cargo, passengers, and fish. The Norwegian vessel Fram carried explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen to the poles. The racing yacht America gave its name to the America’s Cup, a contest long ruled by schooners. The three-masted Atlantic won the 1905 Kaiser’s Cup and set a monohull transatlantic record that stood for nearly a century. Bluenose earned fame as both a working fishing boat and a champion racer.
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