Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts. Schooners were first used by the Dutch in the 16th or 17th century, and further developed in North America from the early 18th century.

According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, the first vessel called a schooner was built by builder Andrew Robinson and launched in 1713 from Gloucester, Massachusetts. Legend has it that the name was the result of a spectator exclaiming "Oh how she scoons", scoon being a Scots word meaning to skip or skim over the water. Robinson replied, "A schooner let her be." According to Walter William Skeat, the term schooner comes from scoon, while the sch spelling comes from the later adoption of the Dutch and German spellings ("Schoner").

Schooners were used to carry cargo in many different environments, from ocean voyages to coastal runs and on large inland bodies of water. They were popular in North America, and in their heyday during the late 19th century over 2,000 schooners carried cargo back and forth across the Great Lakes. Three-masted "terns" were a favourite rig of Canada's Maritime Provinces. The scow schooner, which used a schooner rig on a flat-bottomed, blunt-ended scow hull, was popular in North America for coastal and river transport.

Schooners were used in North American fishing, especially the Grand Banks' fishery. Some Banks fishing schooners such as Bluenose also became famous racers.

Three of the most famous racing yachts, America and Atlantic, were rigged as schooners. They were about 152 feet in length.