Barque

The word "barque" entered English via the French term, which in turn came from the Latin barca by way of Occitan, Catalan, Spanish, or Italian.

The Latin barca may stem from Celtic barc (per Thurneysen)[dubious – discuss] or Greek baris (per Diez), a term for an Egyptian boat.

Well before the 19th century, a barge had become interpreted as a small vessel of coastal or inland waters, or a fast rowing boat carried by warships and normally reserved for the commanding officer.

[3] "Barcarole" in music shares the same etymology, being originally a folk song sung by Venetian gondoliers and derived from barca—"boat" in Italian,[4] or in Late Latin.

William Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine defined "bark", as "a general name given to small ships: it is however peculiarly appropriated by seamen to those which carry three masts without a mizzen topsail.

Our Northern Mariners, who are trained in the coal-trade, apply this distinction to a broad-sterned ship, which carries no ornamental figure on the stem or prow.

"[6] A 16th-century paper document in the Cheshire and Chester Archives and Local Studies Service notes the names of Robert Ratclyfe, owner of the bark Sunday and 10 mariners appointed to serve under the Earl of Sussex, Lord Deputy of Ireland.

[7] By the end of the 18th century,[citation needed] the term barque (sometimes, particularly in the US, spelled bark) came to refer to any vessel with a particular type of sail plan.

Barques were the workhorse of the golden age of sail in the mid-19th century as they attained passages that nearly matched full-rigged ships, but could operate with smaller crews.

While a full-rigged ship is the best runner available, and while fore-and-aft rigged vessels are the best at going to windward, the barque and the barquentine, are compromises,[citation needed] which combine, in different proportions, the best elements of these two.

The Sydney Heritage Fleet restored an iron-hulled three-masted barque, the James Craig, originally constructed as Clan Macleod in 1874 and sailing at sea fortnightly.

The oldest active sailing vessel in the world, the Star of India, was built in 1863 as a full-rigged ship, then converted into a barque in 1901.