The ketch was another rig that did not last long. A ketch had one mast amidships, with yards crossed upon it, and another smaller mast well aft, upon which yards were also crossed, though sometimes a fore-and-aft sail was found there. It was, doubtless, the worst rig ever seen in American waters.
The snow was a modified brig. She had two masts with yards crossed as in a ship, and in addition had a slender mast close abaft the main—a sort of spencer-mast upon which a fore-and-aft sail was set. This style of rig lasted much longer than its name, though that persisted until the nineteenth century.
The most popular rig, during the first hundred years of the colonies, was the sloop, and it can still be seen on oyster boats, brick carriers, and yachts. No other rig will give a hull as great speed, in proportion to the canvas, as this one, and yet the rig can be managed by few men, provided they know their work, and are vigilant. Long coasting voyages were made with sloops carrying forty tons of cargo, and no more than four men. Voyages to the West Indies were made in larger sloops with six men, while oversea voyages were accomplished with one or two more.
In 1713 a contemplation of the advantages of the sloop rig led Captain Andrew Robinson, of Gloucester, Mass., to build a hull, somewhat larger than the ordinary sloop of the day, and place in it two masts, each of which carried the sloop rig. If rigged as a sloop, the one sail would need to be so large that it would be difficult to handle. By dividing the canvas between two sails of the same form, a great enough spread for speed would be obtained, and yet neither sail would be larger than the single one on a smaller hull. The sails were probably stretched before this vessel was launched, and one may believe that the novelty of the rig drew a large crowd to the launching. Beyond doubt, too, everybody cheered as the hull took the water, and one enthusiast shouted,—
"Oh, how she scoons!"
"Scoon" referred to the light and swift motion of the hull as it seemed to glide over, rather than plough through, the water, but Captain Robinson, who had been wondering what he would name the curious rig, seized upon the word "scoon" and said, "A scooner let her be!"
Perhaps the most important event in the shipyards of America, previous to the launching of Fulton's steamer, was the invention of the schooner. For under this rig a hull of twice the capacity of an ordinary sloop could be handled with no, or but a small, increase in the number of men. Moreover, the cost of the rig was less than that of any other for a hull of similar size. In short, a schooner gave her owner more ton-miles of work than any other kind of vessel for each dollar of expense. Schooners were soon used almost exclusively in the cod-fishery on the banks. They rapidly made their way into the coasting trade, where they gathered cargoes for the ships used in the export trade, and served to strengthen the slender cords binding one part of the country to the other. They even went on foreign voyages with great success—as they might do now, if only American owners would take what lies before them.
With the growth of American shipping it was inevitable that American sailors should go privateering. The love of adventure was born into the people who lived where salt spray gave a tang to the odors of a pine forest. Armed ships from Boston hunted Dutch merchantmen as long as the Hudson region was called New Amsterdam. American sailors ate broiled rawhide with Morgan on the banks of the Chagres River. Kidd came from London to New York seeking sailors born in the Highlands of the Hudson, because they were, of all men in the world, best fitted by experience and natural inclination for the work he had in hand. Franklin at one time expressed the hope that the American coast would never shelter such hosts as were found in Algiers and Tripoli, and the thought was founded on his knowledge of the eager determination to get on in life, at all hazards, which the conditions of life in America had generated.
The most important era in the apprenticeship of the colonial merchantmen was that passed in fighting the French and Spanish during England's long struggle for commercial supremacy in the eighteenth century, a period during which New York alone commissioned 48 vessels, carrying 675 guns and 5530 men. As affording interesting views of the work done by the American seamen at that time, consider some of the incidents of the siege of Louisburg, for while the siege was a land contest, it was carried on by men the majority of whom, perhaps, were sailors, and the incidents to be recalled were, at any rate, peculiarly characteristic of the New England foremast hand.
The armed ships numbered thirteen, and ninety merchantmen were chartered to carry the men. The number of ships then owned in the colonies at that time is nowhere stated, but it was not difficult to gather this fleet in New England.