Settee (sail)

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The settee sail was a lateen sail with the front corner cut off, giving it a quadrilateral shape. The settee sail requires a shorter yard than does the lateen, and both settee and lateen have shorter masts than square-rigged sails.

History of the sail form[edit]

It can be traced back to Greco-Roman navigation in the Mediterranean in late antiquity; the oldest evidence is from a late-5th-century AD ship mosaic at Kelenderis, Cilicia.[1][2] It lasted well into the 20th century as a common sail on Arab dhows.

Model of a sambuk with two settee sails

Settee (boat)[edit]

Settees (or saëtia) then were a sharp-prowed, single-decked merchant sailing vessel found in the Mediterranean (more in the Levant than in the Western Mediterranean), in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Spaniards also used them in the New World.[citation needed]

Settees had two lateen-rigged masts, like xebecs or galleys, but carrying settee sails. They sailed well to windward and could sail downwind. Some polaccas carried a settee sail, giving rise to the polacca-settee (or polacre-settee).

Between the 1880s and the 1960s, Gozo boats had a settee rig.[3]

A Mediterranean settee, with two masts, both of which have lateen sails. William Pocock circa 1813

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Whitewright 2009, p. 103
  2. ^ "Picture of mosaic of the Kelenderis ship". Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, www.dainst.org. 30 October 2013. Retrieved 16 May 2024 – via Wayback Machine, web.archive.org.
  3. ^ Muscat, Joseph (1999). "The Gozo boat". Gozo Channel Co. Ltd. Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti. Archived from the original on 3 March 2012.

Sources[edit]