Wilbur Hubbard wrote:


"Ronald Raygun" wrote in message
k...
Wilbur Hubbard wrote:

The photos I Googled showed both of them sailing together and neither
on
had a fore and aft sail on the mainmast. Both masts were
square-rigged
from top to bottom.

http://www.tallshipsyouthtrust.net/d...t=693&doc=6823

That picture shows them from ahead which makes it difficult to see
whether the gaff sails on the main masts are present.

Go to their homepage http://www.tallshipsyouthtrust.net and there
is a photo of one of them from less directly ahead, where you can
clearly see a gaff sail on the after mast (and the mainsail, i.e.
the bottom-most square sail on the main mast, is present, but furled).

But, on the picture I linked to one can see square sails all the way
down to the deck.

So what? We've already agreed they're brigs, not brigantines, and
the owners also describe them as brigs. It's a matter of fact that
they are equipped to carry up to five square sails on the main mast,
and a spanker as well.

You cannot run a squaresail and a fore and aft
mainsail on the mainmast at the same time.

Says who? There's no reason you can't have the spanker and the mainsail
(this being the bottom-most squaresail on the main mast) set at the same
time. It won't be optimal, of course, since the spanker would probably
be blanking half the mainsail, which is why -I suppose- you would often
tend to see the main furled when the spanker is up (and in principle
vice versa, but perhaps not in practice).

If they were fitted with a
gaff mainsail at some time earlier or later then they should be
called 'brigantines.'

Not if the gaff sails were there *as well as* the square sails.

Not so. A brigantine often flies topsails above the gaff mainsail on the
mainmast provided the wind isn't too stiff.

If it *can* fly *any* squaresails on the mainmast then it's not a
brigantine but a brig.

A brigantine has no (provision to set) square sails on the after mast
at all, but if a brig (which of course has square sails on both masts)
also carries a spanker (as it usually does), that doesn't make it a
brigantine.

POPPYCOCK! The mainsail does not preclude the use of square rigged
topsails.

Of course it doesn't, but if the mainmast has any squaresails on it
*at all*, top, bottom, or middle, then it's a brig. A brigantine's
main mast is *always exclusively* fore and aft rigged and never ever
carries any square sails at all at all.

Look at the illustrations I linked to in another post and
you'll see it for yourself.

Which one?