Spread the Work Across a Schooner

The smaller mizzen gave the crew a selectable after sail. Another arrangement distributes substantial cloth between a forward mast and a principal mast behind it. Each carries its own sails and controls. Dividing the cloth this way can reduce the size of the largest sail the crew must handle.

Put the foremast ahead of the main

The mast forward of the mainmast is the foremast. In the two-mast arrangement here, it is shorter than or equal in height to the mainmast behind it. Substantial fore-and-aft sails work at both positions. This is the familiar schooner arrangement, using World Sailing’s stated two-mast height convention. Larger schooners extend the distribution to more masts. Equipment Rules of Sailing, F.1.2 and F.1.4.

The schooner-versus-ketch comparison now has physical references. The ketch has its taller mainmast forward and a smaller mizzenmast aft. Our two-mast schooner has its foremast forward and its mainmast aft. The yawl puts its smaller mizzen still farther aft under the rudder-stock convention. The cat-ketch and cat-yawl retain those respective aftermast arrangements while omitting ordinary forward headsails. Counting two masts alone misses the difference.

On the schooner, main therefore identifies the after principal unit. A boom joined to that mainmast, holding the mainsail’s clew towards its after end, is the main boom. Its sheet restrains the boom and transmits load through its lower attachment to the hull. This is the same job the mizzen boom performed for a different sail; the name follows the cloth being controlled. Lowering a schooner’s main removes its substantial after sail, rather than the smaller mizzen sail of our ketch or yawl.

Two mastheads can also be connected. A triatic stay runs from the upper region of one mast to the other: here, from foremast to mainmast. Tension in it pulls each attachment towards the other. The loads therefore connect the two masts, whose remaining supports must carry the resulting reactions into the hull. Smyth’s 1867 dictionary describes this masthead link and a schooner arrangement in which the stay passes clear of the fore gaff’s end. It is an optional support arrangement, not a requirement created by the name schooner. The Sailor’s Word-Book, “Triatic stay”.

Keep the sail support separate from the mast arrangement

Fit a gaff to each principal fore-and-aft sail. The gaff holds the upper edge, its throat works at the mast, and its peak is raised by the already understood hoist. With that support on the principal sails, we have a gaff schooner. The forward mast’s principal sail is its foresail; the principal after sail is the mainsail. A jib can still occupy the space ahead of the foremast.

Here foresail identifies the sail carried on the foremast. On the one-mast boat it could mean a headsail ahead of the mast. The surrounding arrangement tells us which object the writer means. The schooner’s gaff foresail has its own upper spar and lower clew control; its jib has the forward attachments taught earlier. Those are separate sails with separate jobs.

William Falconer’s 1769 dictionary describes a schooner with gaff mainsail and foresail spread along booms. It supplies a dated example of these names and attachments. It does not establish a single invention date for every later schooner arrangement. Falconer, An Universal Dictionary of the Marine, “Schooner”.

Replace the gaff-supported principal sails with triangular Bermuda sails whose luffs run up their masts. The combined description is Bermuda schooner. The upper corners now rise on the masts without a gaff supporting each head edge; the mast distribution remains the separate schooner property. The two support forms can also be mixed, with a gaff foresail and triangular main. A description needs to say which mast carries which sail.

Reuel Parker’s three-masted Bermudian schooner design makes the combination explicit: triangular principal sails are distributed along the hull, with the tallest mast amidships and a smaller unit aft. The designer records it as an unbuilt commissioned design. It demonstrates a specified arrangement, rather than operating results or a documented conversion from a gaff schooner. Parker’s design; its catalogue status.

Support a sail between the masts

There is another way to use the space occupied by the gaff foresail. Run a stay from the upper mainmast towards the foremast’s base and support a triangular sail along it. Its head is hoisted towards the mainmast, its tack is held forward near the foremast, and its clew extends aft for separate control. This main staysail replaces the ordinary lower sail hung from the foremast. The after mainsail can remain in place.

This gives a staysail schooner: selected spaces between masts use staysails in place of conventional gaff- or mast-supported lower sails. On Lelanta, the sailmaker’s photograph shows the triangular main staysail with its high after head, low forward tack and after clew. The delivered 2021 inventory separately lists a mainsail and main staysail, along with forward and additional light sails. The compound describes a particular distribution, not a requirement that every sail aboard be a staysail. Rolly Tasker Sails’ Lelanta account.

Compared with the mizzen staysail, the supporting after mast here is the mainmast, and the sail can fill a principal lower working space. The mizzen staysail was an additional sail ahead of a smaller aftermast. Both use inter-mast space, but the mast names, corners and ordinary working inventory establish their different places.

Add cloth high between the masts

A fisherman staysail uses the upper gap between the masts. The representative sail has four corners, with two upper hoists rather than the single high corner of a triangular staysail. The shorter name fisherman means this sail when the context is the schooner’s cloth and hoists. The word’s occupational meaning and the fisherman anchor are separate uses; we will examine that anchor with anchoring equipment.

Don Launer’s Delphinus provides a documented arrangement. Its fisherman lies above a gaff foresail and ahead of a triangular main. Separate halyards on the foremast and mainmast raise its upper corners. A tack downhaul restrains the forward lower corner; its secured lower end supplies a reaction below the tack and passes that load into the boat’s structure. Port and starboard sheets control the after clew, leading through aft turning blocks and then forward to cleats. The sail therefore needs both hoists and its lower controls. Launer’s account and labelled plan, first published in 2001.

The extra area has extra handling. The sail must clear the foresail’s gaff and the gear between the masts. Its sheets must be tended when the boat changes tack. Different schooners use different transfer arrangements, so a four-sided outline alone does not reveal every working line. A gaff topsail, supported above one gaff, uses a different space and support arrangement from this inter-mast fisherman.

A gollywobbler spreads a much larger light sail through the inter-mast space, extending down towards the deck instead of occupying only the high gap. On Mayan in May 2015, it replaced the advance staysail for a light-air reach. Its tack was at the foremast foot and its two upper corners hoisted to the foremast and mainmast heads. Its light spinnaker cloth suited the intended light-air use, although the owner reports too little wind to fill it well that day. The owner’s race account.

Its fourth corner, the clew, needs a sheet and a supported lead into the hull. Mayan’s later 2019 refit account describes deck leads for her sail inventory, including the gollywobbler: an adjustable eye forward of an aft snatch block redirects the sheet. Deck pads bolt into backing plates connected to neighbouring deck beams. This explains how the sail’s pull reaches the structure; it describes the later system, not the exact sheet route used in 2015. The owner’s refit account.

The high fisherman and the large gollywobbler are distinct choices in the sail inventory. Their extra cloth does not remove the need for suitable wind, clearance, strength and crew handling. Nor does a staysail’s name guarantee a continuous supporting stay: the actual corner hoists and lower attachments establish how these examples are held.

Extend the distribution along the hull

A three-masted schooner carries the principal fore-and-aft units at three mast positions. Trinovante’s operator names them foremast, mainmast and mizzenmast. Each carries a gaff lower sail; jib and staysail work ahead of the foremast, and two fisherman topsails fill the upper gaps between successive masts. Her mizzen is an aftermast with a substantial sail, showing why the small-mizzen proportions of our two-mast ketch example cannot define every use of that word. Trinovante’s sail plan.

A four-masted schooner extends the distribution to four principal masts. The operator’s 2023 brochure shows Santa Maria Manuela with a gaff lower sail and a gaff topsail at each of the four positions, plus headsails forward. Built for Portuguese cod fishing in 1937, she now carries that rig in a different passenger-sailing role. The lower sails remain separate fore-and-aft units; adding another mast has not turned them into square sails. Operator’s brochure, pages 2–3.

Multi-masted schooner is the broader description for this distribution across several masts. Read the named vessel’s plan for its actual mast names, heights and sails. Trinovante’s three names work for her arrangement; Parker’s proposed three-mast plan and the four positions of Santa Maria Manuela show why a rule that the aftermost mast must always be tallest would fail.

Each additional unit introduces another mast step, support arrangement, sail hoist and sheet system. A fore sail’s boom, leech and sheets must clear the mast and working sail behind it. Lowering one sail changes both total area and force position. Dividing a large area can make an individual operation smaller, while increasing the number of operations to coordinate.

Put the battened sail on either arrangement

The junk system adds a further independent choice. Apply the already explained battened panels, parrels, hoist and sheet spans to a larger forward main and smaller after mizzen: that is a junk ketch. Apply the system to a smaller forward foremast unit and a taller after mainmast unit: that is a junk schooner. Both parts of each compound carry information.

Tystie‘s dated 2021 owner’s description records a junk ketch with a larger forward mast, smaller mizzen and cambered sails. Badger, in Benford’s 1978 sailing-dory design record and the Hills’ selected rig, supplies the two-mast junk schooner example with the larger unit aft. These are particular configurations of boats whose design or service records include other rigs. Tystie’s listing; Benford’s Badger record.

On either arrangement, each battened sail retains its own halyard, restraints and sheets. Lowering one gathers its panels while the other can remain set. Its sheet spans and lowered bundle need room to clear the neighbouring mast and gear.

The distribution does not itself select the way camber is formed. The cambered junk sail, bendy battens and hinged battens taught earlier describe different ways to obtain a curved working section; a split junk describes the division around a slot. Any such choice must be specified for the individual sail. None follows merely from calling the boat a junk ketch or junk schooner.

Include the rest of the crew’s work

The 1891 scow schooner Alma carried freight through San Francisco Bay and its shallow tributaries. Her documented lower inventory was jib, gaff foresail and gaff mainsail. Dividing the cloth helped a crew of two or three handle it, while the broad, shallow hull and lifting centreboard served the route. The centreboard’s trunk occupied space that cargo could otherwise use. The sailors still loaded, unloaded, maintained and moved their vessel when wind or channel made sailing difficult. Historic American Engineering Record, CA-60, pages 7–10.

Hay made the connection between cargo and rig particularly visible. Alma carried it, and the National Park Service describes the working practice of these Bay scows: high stacks required their booms to be raised, with sail reduced to clear the load. A raised steering position let the sailor see over it. Freight capacity therefore reached beyond the shape of the hold. The crew needed room to move the spars and lines above the cargo, while retaining enough controllable sail to carry it along the route. Divided cloth gave a small crew separate pieces to manage within that crowded working space. National Park Service account.

C. A. Thayer, built in 1895 for the Pacific lumber trade, used three masts and a bald-headed rig: it omitted topsails. That simplified upper-sail work and repeated northbound tacking. Her eight-person lumber-service crew also handled cargo. Timber piled on deck competed with sailing gear and the crew’s passage around the vessel; her later fishing complement belonged to a different work list. National Park Service account.

On either schooner, the crew could leave part of the rig available while handling another sail. Taking down the after main removes force in a different place from taking down the forward foresail. The useful combination therefore depends on steering balance and the available drive, as well as on how much cloth the crew can handle at once. These are applications of the separate-sail choices already examined, with substantial working units in different positions.

The restored Alma draws on surviving structure, photographs, measurements and comparable craft; no builder’s plan survives. A fisherman is possible in her earlier inventory, rather than established as an ordinary working sail. The historical report associates such extra canvas with occasions when additional crew were available. Her present rig cannot stand for an untouched 1891 arrangement. HAER, pages 7–10 and 12–14.

These cases connect sail distribution to particular work and materials. Timber spars, sewn cloth, fitted stays and repeated hauling could produce manageable units for a small freight crew. Later yachts retained or recombined the same arrangements for different uses. The rig survived because its separately handled units could still be useful within those different work lists.

Add a square sail above the foremast

Return to the principal fore-and-aft schooner and add a square topsail on the foremast. A yard supports its head across the boat, while the braces turn the yard and the lower-corner controls set the cloth. This combination is a topsail schooner. Its principal lower fore-and-aft distribution remains recognisable beneath the added square-sail machinery. A gaff topsail by itself would not supply that distinction.

Kathleen and May, built in 1900, is recorded as a three-masted topsail schooner. In 1931 she received an engine, her topmasts were shortened and her square topsails removed. The later heritage record describes a crossed foreyard carrying no sail. The spar can survive a change in the working inventory, so a bare yard alone cannot establish what cloth is carried. National Historic Ships record.

This also completes the earlier description of Active: revenue cutter identified her service, while topsail schooner identified her sail arrangement. The words answered different questions about the same vessel.

We now have the main fore-and-aft distributions and a familiar schooner carrying additional square cloth. To understand a larger stack of square sails, we need to follow its separate mast stages, yards, supports and crew controls. That is the next assembly.