Barquentine | |
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![]() 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[]

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[]

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 .
- 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[]
- ↑ 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[]
- ↑ "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.
- ↑ T F Hoad, ed (1993). Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-19-283098-2.
- ↑ "Thor-Heyerdahl". Segelschiff Thor Heyerdahl gemeinnützige Fördergesellschaft mbH. http://www.thor-heyerdahl.de. Retrieved 2012-12-27.
- ↑ "Svanen web page". Sail Australia. http://www.sailaustralia.com.au/svanen.htm. Retrieved 2013-02-22.
External links[]
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Look up barquentine in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
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The original article can be found at Barquentine and the edit history here.