"Wilbur Hubbard" wrote in message
anews.com...

"Andy Champ" wrote in message
...
Wilbur Hubbard wrote:

I hope not because a brigantine is a two-masted, square-rigged ship with
fore and aft mainsail. A 'brig' is a lubberly shortening of the word
'brigantine.'

Wilbur Hubbard

http://www.answers.com/brig&r=67

Note that the first definition is from the *American* heritage dictionary
(so this is not your language being differnt!), and it has a link to
brigantine with the description of the different rig.

Andy

Wrong! Let me repeat. A brigantine is a two masted vessel, square-rigged
but with fore and aft mainsail.
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/d.../d0002703.html

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/brigantine

http://www.geocities.com/cjstein_2000/dictionary.html#B

note: a gaff sail is a fore and aft sail.

Wilbur Hubbard

There's little point in quoting references on the internet, most of them are
plagiarised from other sources (for example, Google any of the phrases that
support the above arguments, such as "A two-masted sailing ship,
square-rigged on both masts." or "a two-Masted vessel with both masts square
rigged. On the sternmost mast, the main mast, there is also a gaff sail.")

I'm not convinced that there's a hard and fast definition. Sailing vessels
are constantly evolving so they make the most of the extant sailing
conditions, so having a brig (square rigged only) and adding a fore and aft
sail (it's still a brig) seems perfectly reasonable.

Alisdair