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- This article is about the ship. For information on the fictional character in Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels see Barquentine (Gormenghast).
[edit] Description
A barquentine (also spelled barkentine) 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. See also sail-plan. An example of a barquentine is the Gazela Primeiro, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Related rigs are brigantine (2 masts), barque (square-rigged on all but the mizzen mast), and the Olympia. The Olympia is the sole instance of a vessel with 2 fore-and-aft rigged masts and 2 square-rigged masts. Earlier and very controversial examples of this class of vessel were the Transits of 1800 and her successors. Their inventor, Richard Hall Gower, claimed that they could be worked entirely from the deck.
