"Ronald Raygun" wrote in message
news
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.


No WE haven't established any such thing. We don't agree here. I say if
it has a fore and aft mainsail then it's a brigantine. You say it's a
brig. I say it's a brig only if it's square rigged all the way.


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).


I should have said you DO NOT use them both at the same time. The
picture of the two brigs sailing together clearly show square rigged on
both masts all the way to the deck.

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

Wrong! the only thing that makes it a brigantine is the fact it carries
a gaff mainsail. If it carries no gaff mainsail then it's 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.

Wrong again. We've all seen pictures of brigantines using square sails
above the gaff main. This doesn't make them a brig because a brig
carries no gaff mainsail.


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.

I disagree. By defintion a brig carries no fore and aft sails. By
definition a brigantine carries a fore and aft mainsail.

Which one?


I can't find it. It must not have got posted for some reason. Maybe I
can find it again. Probably deleted it or something when busy putting a
boot up Martin's arse.

Wilbur Hubbard