The coasting trade of the United States of America is not done in the ketches and topsail schooners and barquentines that we use. It is done exclusively, where sailing ships are used, in fore-and-aft schooners which have arisen directly or indirectly from Gloucester. Two masts have become three, three have become five, and even as many as seven have been used. Perhaps the most notable of these was the seven-masted Thomas W. Lawson, which foundered off the Scillies on December 14, 1907. Remarkable for the ease with which it can be handled, a three-masted schooner of about 400 tons requires only a dozen hands aboard. In tacking, a couple of hands work the head-sheets, and these with a man at the wheel can work her in and out of narrow channels, for which the rig is more suited than any modification of the squaresail. For labour-saving “gadgets” the American schooner has reached the furthest limit. Thus the anchor and sails are raised by steam force; there is steam steering gear as well as steam capstan, and the biggest ships of all have been fitted even with electric light. The illustration in Fig. 91 of a four-master will give one some idea of the extent to which the American schooner has developed.
Fig. 91. An American Four-masted Schooner.
Coming back to European waters, besides the pure fore-and-aft schooner we have also the topsail schooner and the two-topsail schooner. No better instance of the former could be found than in the illustration in Fig. 116 of Lord Brassey’s famous auxiliary yacht the Sunbeam, of which we shall give further details on a later page, among the yachts. But we may now call attention to the square fore-topsail and smaller t’gallant sail on this ship. Sometimes, too, one finds a royal added also to the foremast. The braces, clew-garnet, lifts, and other rigging are so well shown in this photograph as to require no further comment. A two-topsail schooner carries a square topsail and t’gallant sail at the main as well as the fore. The topsail schooner is perhaps the best known of our coasting types. Most of our trading schooners are “butter-rigged,” that is to say, that whereas the topsail schooner has a standing t’gallant yard set up with lifts, the butter-rigged sets her t’gallants’l flying by hoisting the yard every time.
Fig. 92. A Barquentine off the South Foreland.
Fig. 93. Barquentine with Stuns’ls.
The illustrations in Figs. 92 and 93 represent barquentines, although one of them is seen with the now obsolete stun’s’ls. A barquentine is square-rigged on the foremasts, but fore-and-aft rigged on the main and mizzen. The difference between the barquentine and the three-masted schooner is that the former has a regular brigantine’s foremast. The three-masted schooner does not carry a fore-course, but in place of it a large squaresail, only used when running free in moderate weather, only differing from the fore-course in that it is not bent to the yard.
