the.com/barkentine
a sailing ship that can't decide if it's square-rigged or fore-and-aft, so it does both
means A sailing ship with three or more masts, square-rigged only on the foremast and fore-and-aft rigged on all the rest.
from A blend of 'bark' (or 'barque') — a small ship, from Late Latin 'barca,' a boat — with the ending of 'brigantine,' a swift two-masted vessel whose name traces to Italian 'brigantino,' the ship of a 'brigante' or brigand. So the word literally splices two ships together, which suits a vessel that splices two rigging styles together. It surfaced in the 19th century as sailors needed a name for this hybrid arrangement; the variant spelling 'barquentine' keeps the older French-flavored form of 'barque.'
- rig split
- Square sails forward, schooner-style sails aft
- crew lite
- Needs fewer hands than a full-square ship
- mast minimum
- Requires at least three masts to qualify
- name twin
- Barque is its mirror image, square sails aft
- sweet spot
- Balances raw cargo speed with nimble maneuvering
cutty sark — british three-masted barkentine built 1869, preserved in greenwich and fastest clipper ship of her era
stad amsterdam — dutch barkentine built 1855, oldest continuously sailing ship under original rig
elissa — barque-rigged ship built 1877 in scotland, restored 1982 in galveston, texas as working museum ship