Schooner Sailing Vessel

Schooners were more widely used in the United States than in any other country. Two masted schooners were and are most common. They were popular in trades that required speed and windward ability, such as slaving, privateering, blockade running and fshore fishing. They also came to be favoured as pilot vessels, both in the United States and in Northern Europe. In the Chesapeake Bay area several distinctive schooner types evolved, including the Baltimore clipper and the pungy..
There was no set number masts for a schooner. A small schooner has two or three masts, but they were built with as many as six (e.g. the wooden six-masted Wyoming) or seven masts to carry a larger volume cargo. The only seven-masted (steel hulled) schooner, the Thomas W. Lawson, was built in 1902, with a length 395 ft (120 m), the top the tallest mast being 155 feet (47 m) above deck, and carrying 25 sails with 43,000 sq ft (4,000 m2) total sail area. It was manned by a crew only sixteen. A two or three masted schooner is quite maneuverable and can be sailed by a smaller crew than some other sailing vessels. The larger multi-masted schooners were somewhat unmanageable and the rig was largely a cost-cutting measure introduced towards the end the days sail.
Essex, Massachusetts was the most significant shipbuilding center for schooners.. By the 1850s, over 50 vessels a year were being launched from 15 shipyards and Essex became recognized worldwide as North America’s center for fishing schooner construction. In total, Essex launched over 4,000 schooners, most headed for the Gloucester, Massachusetts fishing industry. Bath, Maine was another notable center, which during much the nineteenth century had more than a dozen yards working at a time, and from 1781 to 1892 launched 1352 schooners, including the Wyoming.