Engineering:Spéronare

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Rear view of an anchored British Royal Navy sloop, and two Maltese spéronares, one at anchor and one under sail, National Maritime Museum

A spéronare (Italian: speronara, Maltese: xprunara) was a type of small merchant craft in the Mediterranean in the 18th and 19th centuries. The vessels had no deck and only one mast, often with a lateen sail.[1] They were common in the trade between Malta and Sicily, though the French Navy occasionally built or acquired them, arming them and using them as gunboats. The Calypso-class spéronares Calypso and Nausicaa were examples.

See also

Citations and references

Citations

  1. Winfield and Roberts (2015), p.42.

References

  • Winfield, Rif & Stephen S Roberts (2015) French Warships in the Age of Sail 1786 - 1861: Design Construction, Careers and Fates. (Seaforth Publishing). ISBN:9781848322042