settee (sail)
{{otheruses|Settee (disambiguation)}}
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
It can be traced back to navigation in the Mediterranean Sea in late antiquity; the oldest evidence is from a late 5th-century ship in a Roman mosaic at Kelenderis in Cilicia on the southern coast of Anatolia (now Aydıncık, Mersin).{{harvnb|Whitewright|2009|p=103}}{{cite web |title=Picture of mosaic of the Kelenderis ship |url=http://www.dainst.org/sites/default/files/media/abteilungen/istanbul/events/kelenderis_20110411_g.jpg |website=Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, www.dainst.org |access-date=16 May 2024 |format=|via=Wayback Machine, web.archive.org |date=30 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131030055458/http://www.dainst.org/sites/default/files/media/abteilungen/istanbul/events/kelenderis_20110411_g.jpg |archive-date=2013-10-30 }} It lasted well into the 20th century as a common sail on Arab dhows and on the Gozo boat of Malta.
image:Sambuk.jpg with two settee sails]]
Settee (boat)
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|date=March 2023}}
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.{{cite web |last1=Muscat|first1=Joseph |title=The Gozo boat |url=http://www.gozochannel.com/gozoboat.htm |website=Gozo Channel Co. Ltd. |publisher=Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120303053346/http://www.gozochannel.com/gozoboat.htm |archivedate=3 March 2012 |date=1999}}
File:Mediterranean settee PW0054 (cropped).png circa 1813]]
See also
- Lateen (a triangular sail)
- Tanja sail
- Crab claw sail
References
{{Reflist}}
Sources
- {{Citation
| last = Whitewright
| first = Julian
| year = 2009
| title = The Mediterranean Lateen Sail in Late Antiquity
| periodical = The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology
| volume = 38
| issue = 1
| pages = 97–104
| doi = 10.1111/j.1095-9270.2008.00213.x
| bibcode = 2009IJNAr..38...97W
}}
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