bark³

 

or barque (both: bärk) , sailing vessel with three masts, of which the mainmast and the foremast are square-rigged while the mizzenmast is fore-and-aft-rigged. Although the word was once used to mean any small boat, later barks were sometimes quite large (up to 6,000 tons). In addition to the standard three-masted bark there are also four-masted barks (fore-and-aft-rigged on the aftermast) and barkentines, or three-masted vessels with the foremast square-rigged and the other masts fore-and-aft-rigged. Large numbers of barks were employed in carrying wheat from Australia to England before World WarI; and in 1926 the bark Beatrice sailed from Fremantle, Western Australia, to London in 86 days.

A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel.

History of the term

See barge for the word's etymology

The word barc appears to have come from Celtic languages. The form adopted by English, perhaps from Irish, was bark, while that adopted by French, perhaps from Gaulish, was barge and barque. French influence in England after the Conquest led to the use in English of both words, though their meanings are not now the same. Well before the 19th century a barge had become a small vessel of coastal or inland waters. Somewhat later, a bark became a sailing vessel of a distinctive rig as detailed below. In Britain, by the mid-nineteenth century, the spelling had taken on the French form of barque. Francis Bacon used this form of the word as early as 1605.

In the 18th century, the British Royal Navy used the term bark for a nondescript vessel which did not fit any of its usual categories. Thus, when on the advice of Captain James Cook, a collier was bought into the navy and converted for exploration she was called HM Bark Endeavour. She happened to be a ship-rigged sailing vessel with a plain bluff bow and a full stern with windows.

By the end of the 18th century, however, the term barque (sometimes, particularly in the USA, spelled bark) came to refer to any vessel with a particular type of rig. This comprises three (or more) masts, fore-and-aft sails on the aftermost mast and square sails on all other masts. A well-preserved example of a commercial barque is Falls of Clyde; built in 1878, it is now preserved as a museum ship in Honolulu. Another well preserved barque is the Pommern, the only windjammer in original condition. Its home is in Mariehamn outside the Åland maritime museum. The United States Coast Guard still has an operational Barque, built in Germany in 1936 and captured as a war prize, the USCGC Eagle which is used as a training vessel at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT. The oldest active sailing vessel in the world, the Star of India, was built in 1863 as a fully square rigged ship then converted into a barque in 1901.

Throughout the period of sail, the word was used also as a shortening of the barca-longa of the Mediterranean Sea.

Use

The advantage of these rigs was that they needed smaller (therefore cheaper) crews than a comparable ship or brig-rigged vessel. Conversely, the ship rig tended to be retained for training vessels where the larger the crew, the more seamen were trained.

Barque shrines in ancient Egypt

In ancient Egypt, gods (statues) travelled not by boats on water, but by smaller symbolic boats which were carried by priests. Temples included barque shrines in which the sacred barques rested when a procession was not in progress.^[1][2]

See also

• barge for an etymological discussion
• brigantine (2 masts)
• barquentine (three or more masts, square-rigged on only the fore mast)
• jackass-barque
• USCGC Eagle, sail training vessel
• Barque Press
• Barque Viking
• windjammer
• Pommern (ship)
• Kruzenshtern (ship)
• Passat (ship)
• Pamir (ship)
• Renown (ship)
• Peking (ship)
• Thriller Bark, for barks in fiction
• Elissa (ship), c. 1877. Active sailing ship & museum moored in Galveston, Texas

Reference and further reading

1. ^ Egyptian Temples of the New Kingdom.
2. ^ Ancient Egypt 2675-332 B.c.e.: Religion: Temple Architecture and Symbolism. Arts and Humanities Through the Eras.

• Oxford English Dictionary (1971) ISBN 0-19-861212-5
• Description of a four-masted barque.
• statsraad lehmkuhl

Types of sailing vessels and rigs

Barca-longa · Barque · Barquentine · Bermuda rig · Bilander · Brig · Brigantine · Caravel · Carrack · Catamaran · Catboat · Clipper · Dutch Clipper · Cog · Corvette · Cutter · Dhow · Fifie · Fluyt · Fore & Aft Rig · Frigate · Full Rigged Ship · Gaff Rig · Galeas · Galiot · Galleon · Gunter Rig · Hermaphrodite Brig · Jackass-barque · Junk · Ketch · Longship · Lugger · Mersey Flat · Multihull · Nao · Norfolk Wherry · Pink · Pocket Cruiser · Polacca · Pram · Proa · Sailing hydrofoil · Schooner · Ship of the Line · Sloop · Smack · Snow · Square Rig · Tall Ship · Thames Sailing Barge · Trimaran · Vinta · Wherry · Windjammer · Windsurfer · Xebec · Yacht · Yawl

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