310 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



mast bore two square sails, the mizzenmast a lateen, or 

 triangular shaped sail. 



Ketches were from nine to ten feet deep in the hold and 

 drew seven or eight feet of water. Their width was about 

 two-fifths their length, they were decked throughout, and 

 had cabins aft. The average size was about thirty tons 

 burden, although a few were constructed of eighty tons. 

 Salem was a famous center for the building of ketches. 

 The cost for building was about 3 5s per ton. The Spar- 

 row Hawk, which sailed from England in 1626 with forty 

 passengers and was wrecked on Cape Cod, was a typical 

 representative of this early class of vessel. 1 



The ketch was an improvement over the lugger in that 

 the sails could be handled more easily, as there were two 

 sails on a mast instead of one large one. This type was 

 a popular form of fishing craft in the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, but was unsuited to economy in sailing along the 

 New England shores where the winds are variable. When 

 the vessel was tacking the lateen sail had to be lowered 

 and changed, an operation involving much labor and hard- 

 ship among the seamen. 2 The lateen yard was hung on the 

 mizzenmast diagonally, with the forward end a few feet 

 above deck and the after end tipped up so that it came 

 nearly on a level with the top of the mizzenmast. When 

 changes had been made in the arrangement of sail and in 

 the shape of the hull the ketch developed into the brigan- 

 tine of to-day. The shallop was the forerunner of two 

 types, the Chebacco boat, or pink, and the sloop. 



The change in the arrangement of sail, brought about by 

 the schooner type with sails rigged fore-and-aft, was a 



1 Henry Hall, Report on the Ship-building Industry of the U. S., 

 10th Census, Vol. VIII. 



2 Capt. J. W. Collins, the Evolution of the Fishing Schooner, New 

 England Magazine, May, 1898. 



