bark

bark or barque , 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 War I; and in 1926 the bark Beatrice sailed from Fremantle, Western Australia, to London in 86 days.

bark, from the Latin barca, and in England now synonymous with barque, though the Americans always spell it this way. Originally, it was a term to describe any small merchant sailing ship with a certain hull shape which could carry any rig. This is why Cook's Endeavour, an ex-collier, was described as a ‘cat built bark’ by the Admiralty but a ‘square sterned bark’ by her surveyors.

See also barge.

bark n. also barque a sailing ship, typically with three masts, in which the foremast and mainmast are square-rigged and the mizzenmast is rigged fore-and-aft.