Jackass-barque
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A jackass-barque, sometimes spelled jackass bark, is a sailing ship with 3 (or more masts), of which the foremast is square-rigged and the main is partially square-rigged (topsail, topgallant, etc.) and partially fore-and-aft rigged (course). The mizzen mast is fore-and-aft rigged.
With a four-masted jackass barque the fore and main masts are square-rigged, the mizzen and jigger masts are fore-and-aft rigged. Some 19th century sailors called such a ship "a fore-and-aft schooner chasing a brig". In general a jackass barque is a sailing ship which is half square-rigged and half fore-and-aft rigged.
A well-known example of a four-masted jackass-barque was the Olympic in her times, a 1,402 tons Downeaster (a square-rigged sailing ship from the dockyards of the downeastern ports), launched in 1892 at the shipyards of the New England Ship Building Co, Bath, ME, for Capt. W. H. Besse 1). She had double topsails and a single topgallant sail on both square-riggged masts, the main mast was equipped with single royal and sky sails. After having been dismasted she was re-rigged without the royal and sky sails on the main mast. Her maiden voyage under her first master, Capt. Gibbs, led her around Cape Horn to New York City, South Street Sea Port, with "clean swept holds" and without any balast. She carried steel, nitrate and other cargoes. For years she ran in the sugar trade between Hawaii, California, and Australia. During World War I she was used in the timber trade. In that time she was re-rigged as a four-masted barquentine. After the end of the war during the slump years cargo space of a sailing ship wasn't needed anymore. After having been laid up for some years the 30-year-old ship was converted into a towing barge.
A five-masted jackass barque which has probably never been built would be equipped with square-rigged fore and main masts, with a partially square-rigged and partially fore-and-aft rigged mizzen mast, and fore-and-aft rigged jigger and spanker masts.
[edit] Bibliography
1) Capt. Alfred Basil Lubbock The Down Easters, American deep-water sailing ships, 1868-1919, first published by Charles E. Lauriat Co, Boston, 1929
