the.com/schooner
a ship rigged to outrun pirates, now mostly outrunning your beer's freshness in Australia
means A sailing ship with two or more masts rigged fore-and-aft, or a tall glass for beer (notably larger in Australia, smaller in the UK) — and sometimes one for sherry.
from The word surfaced in early 18th-century New England for a sleek, fast sailing vessel. The charming tale claims an onlooker watched the first one launch and cried 'Oh, how she scoons!' — 'scoon' being a dialect word for skimming a stone across water — and the builder said 'A scooner let her be.' That story is almost certainly folk invention, but it likely points at a real root: a Scots and northern English verb 'scon' or 'scun,' meaning to skim or skip. The drinking-glass sense came later, the vessel's name poured into a tall vessel of a different kind.
- sail trick
- fore-and-aft sails let it sail closer to the wind
- beer size
- a schooner glass differs wildly between Australian states
- speed legend
- named for how it 'scoons' across water like a skipped stone
- rumrunner star
- fast schooners smuggled liquor during Prohibition
- crew light
- needed fewer hands than square-rigged ships its size
the america — yacht that won 100 guineas cup in 1851, sparking the america's cup
the bluenose — canadian fishing schooner featured on dime, undefeated in races 1921-1938