Barque
Encyclopedia
Sailing vessel
Sailing vessel can refer to:*Sailing ship*Sailboat*Ice boat*Land yacht...
with three or more masts
Mast (sailing)
The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall, vertical, or near vertical, spar, or arrangement of spars, which supports the sails. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship...
.
History of the term
The word barque appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and barque. In both Latin and Italian the term barca refers to a small boat, not a full-size ship. French influence in England led to the use in English of both words, although their meanings now are not the same. Well before the nineteenth century a bargeBarge
A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Some barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats...
had become interpreted as a small vessel of coastal or inland waters. Somewhat later, a bark became a sailing vessel of a distinctive rig as detailed below. In Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, by the mid-nineteenth century, the spelling had taken on the French form of barque. Francis Bacon used this form of the word as early as 1605. Throughout the period of sail, the word was used also as a shortening of the barca-longa
Barca-longa
The barca longa was a two or three-masted lugger found on the coasts of Spain and Portugal as well as more widely in the Mediterranean Sea. They were used in Spain and Portugal for fishing but were employed by the Royal Navy in Mediterranean waters, for shore raids or as dispatch boats. In general,...
of the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
.
The usual convention is that spelling barque refers to a ship and bark to tree hide
Bark
Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
, to distinguish the homophone
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
s.
See also Barque of Peter (ship as an image/symbol of the Catholic Church) for religious usage of the term.
Bark (ship)
In the eighteenth century, the British Royal NavyRoyal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
used the term bark for a nondescript vessel that did not fit any of its usual categories. Thus, when the British Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
purchased a collier
Collier (ship type)
Collier is a historical term used to describe a bulk cargo ship designed to carry coal, especially for naval use by coal-fired warships. In the late 18th century a number of wooden-hulled sailing colliers gained fame after being adapted for use in voyages of exploration in the South Pacific, for...
for use by James Cook
James Cook
Captain James Cook, FRS, RN was a British explorer, navigator and cartographer who ultimately rose to the rank of captain in the Royal Navy...
in his journey of exploration, she was registered as HM Bark Endeavour
HM Bark Endeavour
HMS Endeavour, also known as HM Bark Endeavour, was a British Royal Navy research vessel commanded by Lieutenant James Cook on his first voyage of discovery, to Australia and New Zealand from 1769 to 1771....
to distinguish her from another Endeavour, a sloop
Sloop-of-war
In the 18th and most of the 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. As the rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above, this meant that the term sloop-of-war actually encompassed all the unrated combat vessels including the...
already in service at the time. She happened to be a ship-rigged
Full rigged ship
A full rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel with three or more masts, all of them square rigged. A full rigged ship is said to have a ship rig....
sailing vessel with a plain bluff bow and a full stern with windows.
William Falconer
William Falconer
William Falconer was a Scottish poet.Falconer was the son of a barber in Edinburgh, where he was born, became a sailor, and was thus thoroughly competent to describe the management of the storm-tossed vessel, the career and fate of which are described in his poem, The Shipwreck , a work of...
's Dictionary of the Marine defined "bark", as "a general name given to small ships: it is however peculiarly appropriated by seamen to those which carry three masts without a mizen top-sail. Our northern mariners, who are trained in the coal-trade, apply this distinction to a broad-sterned ship, which carries no ornamental figure on the stem or prow."
Barque rig
Sail-plan
A sail-plan is a set of drawings, usually prepared by a naval architect. It shows the various combinations of sail proposed for a sailing ship.The combinations shown in a sail-plan almost always include three configurations:...
. This comprises three (or more) masts
Mast (sailing)
The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall, vertical, or near vertical, spar, or arrangement of spars, which supports the sails. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship...
, fore-and-aft sails on the aft
Aft
Aft, in naval terminology, is an adjective or adverb meaning, towards the stern of the ship, when the frame of reference is within the ship. Example: "Able Seaman Smith; lay aft!". Or; "What's happening aft?"...
ermost mast and square sails
Square rig
Square rig is a generic type of sail and rigging arrangement in which the primary driving sails are carried on horizontal spars which are perpendicular, or square, to the keel of the vessel and to the masts. These spars are called yards and their tips, beyond the last stay, are called the yardarms...
on all other masts. Barques were the workhorse of the Golden Age of Sail in the mid 19th century as they attained passages that nearly matched full rigged ship
Full rigged ship
A full rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel with three or more masts, all of them square rigged. A full rigged ship is said to have a ship rig....
s but could operate with smaller crews.
The advantage of these rigs was that they needed smaller (therefore cheaper) crews than a comparable full-rigged
Full rigged ship
A full rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel with three or more masts, all of them square rigged. A full rigged ship is said to have a ship rig....
ship or brig
Brig
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...
-rigged vessel as there were fewer of the labour intensive square sails, and the rig itself is cheaper. Conversely, the ship rig tended to be retained for training vessels where the larger the crew, the more seamen were trained.
Another advantage is that a barque can outperform a schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
or barkentine, and is both easier to handle and better at going to windward than a full-rigged ship. While a full-rigged ship is the best runner available, and while fore-and-aft rigged vessels are the best at going to windward, the barque is often the best compromise, and combines the best elements of these two.
Most ocean-going windjammer
Windjammer
A windjammer is the ultimate type of large sailing ship with an iron or for the most part steel hull, built to carry cargo in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century...
s were four-masted barques, since the four-masted barque is considered the most efficient rig available because of its ease of handling, small need of manpower, good running capabilities, and good capabilities of rising toward wind. Usually the main mast was the tallest; that of Moshulu
Moshulu
Moshulu is a four-masted steel barque built by William Hamilton on the River Clyde in Scotland in 1904, and currently a floating restaurant docked in Penn's Landing, Philadelphia. -History:...
extends to 58 m off the deck. The four-masted barque can be handled with a surprisingly small crew—at minimum, ten—and while the usual crew was around thirty, almost half of them could be apprentices.
Today many sailing school ship
School ship
A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is especially used for ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house classrooms....
s are barques.
A well-preserved example of a commercial barque is the Pommern
Pommern (ship)
The Pommern, formerly the Mneme , is a windjammer. She is a four-masted barque that was built in 1903 in Glasgow at the J. Reid & Co shipyard....
, the only windjammer
Windjammer
A windjammer is the ultimate type of large sailing ship with an iron or for the most part steel hull, built to carry cargo in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century...
in original condition. Its home is in Mariehamn
Mariehamn
Mariehamn is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is the seat of the Government and Parliament of Åland, and 40% of the population of Åland live in the city...
outside the Åland maritime museum. The wooden barque Sigyn
Sigyn (ship)
Sigyn, built in Göteborg 1887, now museum ship in Turku, is the last remaining wooden barque used for trade across the oceans. At the time she was built there were thousands of similar vessels, but she was one of the last ones built...
, built in Göteborg 1887, is now a museum ship
Museum ship
A museum ship, or sometimes memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public, for educational or memorial purposes...
in Turku
Turku
Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...
. The wooden whaling
Whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...
barque Charles W. Morgan
Charles W. Morgan (ship)
Charles W. Morgan was a U.S. whaleship during the 19th and early 20th century. Ships of this type usually harvested the blubber of whales for whale oil, which was commonly used in lamps...
, launched 1841, taken out of service 1921, is now a museum ship at Mystic Seaport
Mystic Seaport
Mystic Seaport, the Museum of America and the Sea, in Mystic, Connecticut, is notable both for its collection of sailing ships and boats, and for the re-creation of crafts and fabric of an entire 19th century seafaring village...
in Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. The United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...
still has an operational barque, built in Germany in 1936 and captured as a war prize
Prize
A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people to recognise and reward actions or achievements. Official prizes often involve monetary rewards as well as the fame that comes with them...
, the USCGC Eagle
USCGC Eagle (WIX-327)
The is a barque used as a training cutter for future officers of the United States Coast Guard. She is one of only two active commissioned sailing vessels in American military service, the other being the USS Constitution....
, which the United States Coast Guard Academy
United States Coast Guard Academy
Founded in 1876, the United States Coast Guard Academy is the military academy of the United States Coast Guard. Located in New London, Connecticut, it is the smallest of the five federal service academies...
in New London, Connecticut
New London, Connecticut
New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States.It is located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, southeastern Connecticut....
uses as a training vessel. The Sydney Heritage Fleet restored an iron-hulled three-masted barque, the James Craig
James Craig (barque)
The James Craig is a three-masted, iron-hulled barque restored and sailed by the Sydney Maritime Museum.-History:Built in 1874 in Sunderland, England, by Bartram, Haswell, & Co., she was originally named Clan Macleod. She was employed carrying cargo around the world, and rounded Cape Horn 23 times...
, originally constructed in 1874. The oldest active sailing vessel in the world, the Star of India
Star of India (ship)
Star of India was built in 1863 as Euterpe, a full-rigged iron windjammer ship in Ramsey, Isle of Man. After a full career sailing from Great Britain to India and New Zealand, she became a salmon hauler on the Alaska to California route...
, was built in 1863 as a full-rigged ship, then converted into a barque in 1901.
Barques and barque shrines in Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
barques, referred to using the French word as Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs
Egyptian hieroglyphs were a formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used cursive hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus and wood...
were first translated by the Frenchman Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion
Jean-François Champollion was a French classical scholar, philologist and orientalist, decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs....
, were a type of boat used from Egypt's earliest recorded times and are depicted in many drawings, paintings, and reliefs that document the culture. Transportation to the afterlife was believed to be accomplished by way of barques as well, and the image is used in many of the religious murals and carvings in temples and tombs.
The most important Egyptian barque carried the dead pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
to become a deity. Great care was taken to provide a beautiful barque to the pharaoh for this journey, and models of the boats were placed in their tombs. Many models of these boats, that range from tiny to huge in size, have been found. Wealthy and royal members of the culture also provided barques for their final journey. The type of vessel depicted in Egyptian images remains quite similar throughout the thousands of years the culture persisted.
Barques were important religious artifacts
Cultural artifact
A cultural artifact is a term used in the social sciences, particularly anthropology, ethnology, and sociology for anything created by humans which gives information about the culture of its creator and users...
and since the deities were thought to travel in this fashion in the sky—the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
was seen as a great waterway that was as important as the Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...
on Earth—cult statues
Cult image
In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...
of the deities traveled by boats on water and ritual boats were carried about by the priests during festival ceremonies. Temples
Egyptian temple
Egyptian temples were built for the official worship of the gods and commemoration of pharaohs in Ancient Egypt and in regions under Egyptian control. These temples were seen as houses for the gods or kings to whom they were dedicated...
included barque shrines, sometimes more than one in a temple, in which the sacred barques rested when a procession was not in progress. In these stations the boats would be watched over and cared for by the priests.
See also
- BarquentineBarquentineA barquentine is a sailing vessel with three or more masts; with a square rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged main, mizzen and any other masts.-Modern barquentine sailing rig:...
(3 masts, foremast square-rigged) - BrigantineBrigantineIn sailing, a brigantine or hermaphrodite brig is a vessel with two masts, only the forward of which is square rigged.-Origins of the term:...
(2 masts, foremast square-rigged) - Jackass-barqueJackass-barqueA jackass-barque, sometimes spelled jackass bark, is a sailing ship with three masts, of which the foremast is square-rigged and the main is partially square-rigged and partially fore-and-aft rigged...
(3 masts, foremast and upper part of mizzen mast square rigged) - SchoonerSchoonerA schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
- WindjammerWindjammerA windjammer is the ultimate type of large sailing ship with an iron or for the most part steel hull, built to carry cargo in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century...
- List of large sailing vessels