Four-masted barque (Kemp 1988:61)
Next in size to ships, were vessels intended for coastal service but capable of ocean voyages. The pinnace was a lightly constructed vessel designed to move easily under sails or sweeps (long oars). Light draft and good maneuverability made pinnaces useful for trading, lightering, and exploration ventures. Pinnace rigs varied in size from a single mast with main-and-staysails for a smaller model to a full ship rig for a 50-tonner.
In contrast to the pinnace, both the bark and ketch were heavily constructed vessels designed primarily as sailing craft. Both were single decked and were employed for fishing or coastal trading. While both had two masts, the bark was square rigged and the ketch fore-and-aft. From the Latin barca, and now synonymous with barque, originally a general term to describe any small sailing ship of any rig. A sailing vessel with three masts, square-rigged on the fore and main and fore and aft rigged on the mizzen. Until the mid-19th century, barques were relatively small sailing ships, but later were built up to about 3,000 tons, particularly for the grain and nitrate trade to South American ports round Cape Horn. Four-masted and even five-masted barques were later built for this trade (Kemp 1988 61-62). The shallop, heavily constructed and undecked, was the smallest colonial built craft capable of coastal navigation. Usually a single-masted vessel carrying main-and-staysails, its small size (about 30 feet or less in length) enabled it to be carried aboard ships in sections and reassembled when needed (Goldenberg 1976:5).
