Schooner

The schooner is a fore-and-aft rigged vessel of two or more masts, with the foremast no taller than the main, a type associated with New England from the early eighteenth century. The rig needed fewer hands than a square-rigger and pointed higher into the wind, making schooners ideal for coastal trade, fishing on the Grand Banks, and pilot and privateer work. Multi-masted schooners grew to six and even seven masts for the American coal and lumber trades before motor vessels displaced them.