Military Wiki
Barquentine
Belgian barquentine Mercator. Trinidad, c. 1960
Belgian barquentine Mercator
Type Sailing rig
Place of origin Northwest Europe and America

A barquentine (alternatively barkentine) 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[]

Sail plan barquentine

A 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[]

Mercator

Painting of the Mercator by Yasmina

  • Gazela Primeiro of 1901.
  • Concordia, a sail training ship that capsized and sank on 17 February 2010.
  • Mercator of 1932, Belgian training ship.
  • Transit, an experimental design of 1800 that could be worked entirely from the deck.
  • Peacemaker launched 1989.
  • Many smaller ships of the late 19th century Royal Navy were rigged as barquentines, including the Redbreast-class gunboats.
  • Endurance, commanded by Sir Ernest Shackleton and crushed by ice in the Weddell Sea during the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17.
  • KRI Dewaruci of Indonesian Navy, launched and commissioned in 1953, still in service now; a well-known tall ship used for cadet training and ambassador of the sea, sails around the world and visits many countries.
  • Esmeralda, a sail training ship of the Chilean Navy.
  • Polish-built Pogoria class sail training ships: Pogoria, Kaliakra and pl [Iskra (1982)].
  • Thor-Heyerdahl[3]
  • Southern Swan (Svanen), tall ship from 1922 re-rigged as a Barquentine from its original rigging as a Schooner. Sails on Sydney Harbour for cruises.[4]

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. http://web.archive.org/web/20101228161737/http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mma/AtoZ/rigs.html. 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. http://www.thor-heyerdahl.de. Retrieved 2012-12-27. 
  4. "Svanen web page". Sail Australia. http://www.sailaustralia.com.au/svanen.htm. Retrieved 2013-02-22. 

External links[]

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