Brigantine

A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail (behind the mast). The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts.

Not to be confused with Brig.
This article is about the sailing vessel category. For the adjective Brigantine, see House of Braganza. For the city, see Brigantine, New Jersey. For the kind of medieval armor, see Brigandine.
Brigantine
Brigantine Experiment of Newburyport, 114 tons, built at Amesbury in 1803
TypeSailing rig
Place of originAtlantic maritime nations

Older usages are looser; in addition to the rigorous definition above (attested from 1695), the Oxford English Dictionary includes two c. 1525 definitions: "a small vessel equipped both for sailing and rowing, swifter and more easily manœuvred than larger ships" and "(loosely) various kinds of foreign sailing and rowing vessels, as the galleon, galliot, etc."

Modern American definitions include vessels without any square sail(s) on the main mast.

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