What Is A Barque?

[Timbo]

Other than what a French dog says... I mean a sailing barque circa 1580. The dictionary definition mentioned square rigging, which I understand, but it also mentioned rigging 'fore and aft' which I'm assuming is the triangle type sail on yachts?  

Can someone explain? Better still reference an image?  The document I'm reading mentions 'barques lining a quay at Windsor ' in 1586.

[JennyMorgan]

17 minutes ago, Timbo said:

Other than what a French dog says... I mean a sailing barque circa 1580. The dictionary definition mentioned square rigging, which I understand, but it also mentioned rigging 'fore and aft' which I'm assuming is the triangle type sail on yachts?  

Can someone explain? Better still reference an image?  The document I'm reading mentions 'barques lining a quay at Windsor ' in 1586.

This is about right:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barque

Wonderful thing is Google!

[Timbo]

Would the ship have been smaller in the 1500/1600s JM? I'm wondering if they are talking about vessels used to carry goods from ship to shore or from London to Windsor? 

.

[JennyMorgan]

I believe that they would have been. A trip to the Greenwich Maritime Museum might pay dividends.

[Timbo]

OK i now have a headache after looking into the various sails and combinations of such... I reckon it's all a game of Mornington Crescent! Square Rig, Lateen Rig, Fore and Aft by way of Bermuda, Mornington Crescent. Sorry there's no topsail on the jib when playing by Plymouth rules unless there's an Admiral on board.  

[Vaughan]

There might also be confusion between a Bark and a Barque, which is French for a barge, and which would have been used from ship to shore.

I have sailed on a Barquentine, but it is all a bit too complicated nowadays. I prefer a staysail schooner!

[JennyMorgan]

I was searching images on Google in an effort to find a definitive answer for Tim, I couldn't find one and clearly the French had a different definition which just added to my confusion. Thanks, Vaughan, all is now as clear as mud but I suspect that you have nailed it.

[Vaughan]

This iconic photo, by Beken of Cowes, is the topsail schooner Margherita, built just before WW1 by  Camper and Nicholson.

The big (indeed huge) sail between the masts was called the fisherman, and was only set on a reach. Behind it can be seen the main topmast staysail. Because of the triatic stays between the masts, both of these sails as well as the fore topsail, had to be lowered before the yacht could be put about. The photographer counted at least 36 crew on board, one of whom can be seen standing on the cross trees of the foremast futtock shrouds.

This is the staysail schooner Emilia, built in Italy in 1930 and restored in 1988.

The sail in the middle, cleated to both mastheads, is called a "gollywobbler" (yes, it is) and is sheeted back to the end of the main boom. Again, it is only hoisted on a fine reach and is so big that it is either set, or stored ashore; there is nowhere on the yacht to stow it below decks.

 

[Vaughan]

 

This is a diagram of the Cutty Sark, which was known as a clipper ship, but is rigged as a 3 masted Barque.

Let's have an afternoon quiz - who can name the sails that I have numbered in the picture? No Googling please, I didn't!

Can you also name the spar, no 8, and the standing rigging cable, no 9?

[riyadhcrew]

I look forward to the answers on this one.

[grendel]

5 fore gallant topsail? or is this classed as a skysail

Please note I am just guessing based on various films and stories read.

1 mizzen?

9 bobstay?

8 bowsprit?

[grendel]

7 mainsail

[Timbo]

Ho ho...boot on the other foot now Vaughan has given me homework! 

[unclemike]

beware of timbo

 

his barque is worse than his byte

[Polly]

Certain ladies in C18th were described as 'Barques of Frailty', having led a sheltered life, I have no idea what this signified. 

[Springsong]

1. mizzen staysail  

3. main T'gallant

5 fore T'gallant

6 fore main sail

8 Dolphin striker ?

The rest I would have to look up as my memory as usual fails me.

I probably wont have the others right either come to think.

[Vaughan]

Keep it coming folks, you are doing well.

Polly sent me a PM, too shy to post her answers in public, but she is well in the lead, so far!

[Regulo]

Numbers 1 to 9 - Big white flappy things. Do I win? 

[MauriceMynah]

Would a poem about such a majestic craft be a

Barque ode ?

[Islander]

As I'm never going to own one of these and as it will never ever go under Thorpe railway bridge, on a need to know factor...I don't know! I do have a book that answer all of this but It being 20 miles away and me having just demolished a nice but cheap Italian bottle of red I'm not going to go and get it just to keep Vaughan happy but top gallants, royals and sky sails come to mind but the standing rigging I'm failing at, but I didn't go to a naval school but trained as a TV engineer so what should I know, a pc88 and an el84 were  more important to me. I have enough trouble rigging a mirror dinghy.

colin

[Vaughan]

6 hours ago, Vaughan said:

 

This is a diagram of the Cutty Sark, which was known as a clipper ship, but is rigged as a 3 masted Barque.

Let's have an afternoon quiz - who can name the sails that I have numbered in the picture? No Googling please, I didn't!

Can you also name the spar, no 8, and the standing rigging cable, no 9?

 

Results of this afternoon's quiz :

1/. Spanker.

2/. Mizzen topgallant staysail.

3/. Skysail.

4/. Main royal staysail.

5/. Fore royal.

6/. This is a good one - fore upper topgallant starboard stunsail, or studding sail.

7/. Main course.

8/. Dolphin striker.

9/. Main stay - also called mainbrace, when splicing it!

I think I must have spent too much of my youth making Revell plastic kits of sailing ships!

[Islander]

Ah, but the glue was good from what I can remember!

Colin

 

[SteveO]

Well obviously, a barque is a noise emitted by an excited dogue.

Steve

[quo vadis]

I like dogs 

[Vaughan]

I should have read Timbo's original question more carefully before I shot off into ocean-going sailing ships! A barque is indeed a sailing vessel with more than one mast and having sails of both square and "lateen" or fore-and aft rig, but let's look at the French word barque again :

The French use this word to describe a work boat, and this includes a dinghy, used as a tender. It would also be used, by them, to describe a Norfolk wherry.

We know that there were also wherries on the Thames, for lightening ships in the estuary at Greenwich, so that the ships could then go up river to London. Their successors were the well known steel lighters, towed by tugs, which were so abundant in the Pool of London before and after the War.

Windsor is on the Upper Thames (above Teddington Locks) and so the work boats would have been smaller and may not have had sails. The Thames was only made navigable, in those days, by "flash" locks, which were a single gate, which would be opened to let you dive through, on the current. Going upstream you would have to be hauled through by horses, or taken past the weir overland (portage) so I don't suppose the boats would have been very big.

I guess that we could probably compare them to the traditional Norfolk reed barge.

So perhaps, at last, this answers Timbo's question!