What a schooner is, and what it is not
A schooner is a sailing vessel with at least two masts, rigged with fore-and-aft sails, in which the foremast is shorter than, or the same height as, the mainmast. It differs from a ketch, whose forward mast is the taller, and from a brig, which carries square sails on its masts. The rig could be extended to three or more masts, a development of the later nineteenth century.
The early history of the type has a popular legend attached to it, and the legend is worth separating from the evidence.
The Gloucester story
According to a long-repeated tradition, the first schooner was built in Gloucester, Massachusetts, around 1713, by a shipbuilder often named as Andrew Robinson. As the vessel slid down the ways, an onlooker is said to have exclaimed that she “scooned”, a dialect word suggesting skimming over the water, and Robinson replied that a schooner she should be. The story gives a neat explanation of the name, but historians are cautious about it. The tale appeared well after the supposed event, and there is no firm contemporary record of it. The word itself may well have developed from a verb of this kind, or may have come from Dutch terms for similar craft; its origin is not settled.
What can be said with more confidence is that two-masted fore-and-aft vessels were being built in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the seventeenth century, and that by the early eighteenth century such craft were appearing in New England. The American colonies then developed the type in their own way, and it became closely associated with them.
Why it suited the colonies
The schooner was a good answer to local conditions.
- Small crews. Colonial labour was scarce and costly. Fore-and-aft sails could be handled by fewer men than a square rig of equal size.
- Windward ability. The coast of North America has many bays, sounds and estuaries, and the ability to sail close to the wind helped.
- Moderate draught. A schooner could be built shallow enough to enter small harbours and rivers.
- Cheap to build. Abundant timber and a developing shipbuilding industry made hulls affordable.
- Flexible sail plan. Sails could be added or removed to suit conditions, and the divided rig kept individual sails manageable.
Trade
Through the eighteenth century, schooners spread through the colonial trading world. They carried timber, fish, grain, flour and other goods up and down the coast, and made voyages to the West Indies, where New England provisions and lumber were exchanged for sugar, molasses and rum. The Caribbean sea lanes were crowded with such traffic. Some cargoes were less honourable: American vessels of various rigs took part in the Atlantic slave trade, and the shipping network that sustained the colonies was connected in many places with that trade.
After American independence, schooners remained at the centre of coastal commerce. The type spread to Britain and other European countries, where it was adopted for coastal and some foreign trade, and eventually into the yachting world.
Fishing
Schooners became the standard vessel of the New England offshore fisheries. From ports such as Gloucester, fleets sailed to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and to other fishing grounds in search of cod and, later, halibut and mackerel. Fishermen worked from the schooner’s deck or sent out small boats from it, and the Grand Banks dory was the small boat used in that work.
Fishing schooners were built to be fast, so that they could reach the grounds and return with a fresh catch ahead of competitors. They were also dangerous places to work, and the dangerous conditions of the Atlantic fisheries claimed many lives and boats over the years. Fishing schooners continued to be built into the early twentieth century, and one of the best known, Bluenose, was launched in 1921 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, and became a celebrated racing schooner.
War and privateering
During the American Revolution and the War of 1812, schooners were used as privateers and as small naval vessels. A group of fast, sharply built schooners from the Chesapeake region, often called Baltimore clippers, became well known in this role. They were low, raked, and carried a large amount of sail, which made them very fast. Many were used as privateers in the War of 1812, and some were later used for less reputable purposes, including slave trading, because their speed helped them to evade pursuit. Such vessels operated under letters of marque.
Later development
During the nineteenth century, schooners grew in size, adding masts and tonnage to carry coal and other bulk cargoes and to race as yachts. The early schooner is best remembered as a small, versatile vessel that fitted the needs of a young maritime society: a handy, economical boat that could be crewed by a few men and worked both in trade and at the fishing grounds.