Tall ship

The terms tall ship that we will use often in this site does not correspond to a specific type of sailing vessel. It usually means a large, traditionally rigged (in terms of sails) sailing vessel. It can be “technically” a full ship but doesn’t need to be.


The biggest type is called a full-rigged ship and it looks like this:
A full-rigged ship has at least three masts all square rigged (her name is Christian Radich)






A barque looks like this: ("Elissa")

it is a three mastet vessel with two masts that are square rigged and one mast, the one closer to the back (aft) of the ship that uses sails that are parallel to the of the keel (fore-and-aft sails) rather than perpendicular like the square sails.


A barquentine is like this:
the barquentine Mercator.

it has three or more masts and only one of them, the foremast is square rigged.


A brig is like this:
it has two square rigged masts.
The brig US Niagara photographed by Lowry.




A brigantine is like this:
The brigantine Falado von Rhodos.

it has two masts, only the forward of which is square rigged.



The three-masted schooner looks like this:
The three-masted schooner Regina Maris.

It has three masts and sails that are parallel to the keel and some of them are shaped with four corners.



The topsail-schooner looks like this:
Topsail schooner Pride of Baltimore II.

it carries two or more square topsails on its foremast.

The two-masted schooner looks like this:

written by Roberto Mazzoni

www.tallsailingclub.com