List of ship types

Last updated October 05, 2023

This is a list of historical ship types, which includes any classification of ship that has ever been used, excluding smaller vessels considered to be boats. The classifications are not all mutually exclusive; a vessel may be both a full-rigged ship by description, and a collier or frigate by function.

A two-masted schooner Bateaugoelette.jpg — A two-masted schooner

Aircraft Carrier

Naval vessel able to launch and retrieve airplanes

Amphibious warfare ship

vessels of various sizes for landing personnel and vehicles

Aviso

(Spanish or French) Originally a dispatch boat, later applied to ships equivalent to the Royal Navy sloop

Barque

A sailing vessel with three or more masts, fore-and-aft rigged on only the aftermost

Barquentine

A sailing vessel with three or more masts, square-rigged only on the foremast

Battlecruiser

A heavily-armed cruiser similar to a battleship but possessing less armor

Battleship

A large, heavily armored and heavily gunned powered warship

Bilander

A ship or brig with a lug-rigged mizzen sail

Bireme

An ancient vessel, propelled by two banks of oars

Birlinn

(Scots) Clinker-built vessel, single-masted with a square sail also capable of being rowed

Blockade runner

A ship whose current business is to slip past a blockade

Boita

A cargo vessel used for trade between Eastern India and Indochina

Brig

A two-masted, square-rigged vessel

Brigantine

A two-masted vessel, square-rigged on the foremast and fore-and-aft rigged on the main

Caravel

(Portuguese) A much smaller, two, sometimes three-masted ship

Carrack

Three or four masted ship, square-rigged forward, lateen-rigged aft; 14th–16th century successor to the cog

Cartel

A small boat used to negotiate between enemies

Catboat

A sailing vessel characterized by a single mast carried well forward (i.e., near the bow of the boat)

Clipper

A fast multiple-masted sailing ship, generally used by merchants because of their speed capabilities

Coastal defense ship

A vessel built for coastal defense

Cog

Plank built, one mast, square rigged, 12th to 14th century, superseded the longship

Collier

A vessel designed for the coal trade

Corvette

A small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, generally smaller than a frigate

Cruise ship

A ship used for carrying passengers on pleasure cruises

Cruiser

A warship that is generally larger than a destroyer, but smaller than a battleship

Destroyer

A warship mainly used for anti-submarine warfare

Destroyer escort

A lighter destroyer intended primarily for escort duties

Dhow

traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region

Dreadnought

An early twentieth century type of battleship characterized by an "all big gun" armament

Pre-dreadnought: Battleships predating the dreadnought, characterized by having an offensive battery of mixed calibers

Drekar

A Viking longship with sails and oars

Dromons

Ancient precursors to galleys

East Indiaman

An armed merchantman belonging to one of the East India companies

Felucca

A traditional Arab type of sailing vessel

Fire ship

A vessel of any sort, set on fire and sent forth to cause consternation and destruction, rendering an enemy vulnerable

Floating fuel station

A fuel dispensing vessel

Fluyt

A Dutch-made vessel from the Golden Age of Sail, with multiple decks and two or three square-rigged masts, usually used for merchant purposes

Flüte (French: en flûte, "as a fluyt"): A sailing warship used as a transport, with a reduced armament

Frigate

A term used for warships of many sizes and roles over the past few centuries

Galleass

A sailing and rowing warship, equally well suited to sailing and rowing

Galleon

A sixteenth century sailing warship

Galley

A warship propelled by oars with a sail for use in a favourable wind

Galliot

Name refers to several types of sailing vessel, usually two-masted

Gunboat

Various small armed vessels, originally sail and later powered

Hydrofoil

A ship whose hull is fitted underneath with shaped vanes (foils) which lift the hull out of the water at speed.

Ironclad

A wooden warship with external iron plating

Junk

A Chinese sailing ship that widely used in ancient far east and South China sea which includes many variants such as Fu Ship, Kwong Ship.

Karve

A small type of Viking longship

Ketch

A two-masted, fore-and-aft rigged sailing boat with a mizzenmast stepped forward of the rudder and smaller than its foremast.

Knarr

A large type of Viking cargo ship, fit for Atlantic crossings

Lorcha

A sailing ship with mixed Chinese (rig) and western design (hull) that used since 16th century in far east.

Landing Ship, Tank

Military ship for landing troops and vehicles

Liberty ship

A type of welded American merchant ship of the late Second World War period, designed for rapid construction in large quantity

Liner or ocean liner

A large passenger ship, usually running on a regular schedule. The same vessel may be used as a cruise ship

Littoral combat ship (LCS)

US warship intermediate in size between a corvette and a frigate, similar to a sloop

Longship

A Viking raiding ship

Man-of-war

A heavily-armed sailing warship

Merchantman

A trading vessel

Armed merchantman: A trading vessel possessing weapons for self-defense
Merchant aircraft carrier: A merchant vessel capable of launching aircraft
Merchant raider: An armed vessel used for raiding disguised as a merchant vessel

Mistico

Small, fast two or three-masted Mediterranean sailing vessel

Monitor

A small, very heavily gunned warship with shallow draft, designed for coastal operations

Motor ship or motor vessel

A vessel powered by a non-steam engine, typically diesel. Ship prefix MS or MV

Nef

A large medieval sailing ship

Oil Tanker

A large ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products.

Packet

A sailing ship that carried mail, passengers and freight

Paddle steamer

A steam-propelled, paddle-driven vessel

Panterschepen (Dutch) or Pansarskepp (Swedish)

Types of ironclad, heavy gunboats designed for coastal or colonial service

Penteconter

An ancient warship propelled by 50 oars, 25 on each side

Pinisi (or Phinisi)

A fast, two-masted ship traditionally used by the Bugis of Eastern Indonesia

Pinnace

Although usually defined as a type of tender carried by another ship, it was also a term in the 16th century for a ship up to 50 or more tons capable of trans-oceanic voyages. Referenced in the 16th century tome "The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell..." who sailed from England to explore Africa.

Polyreme

A generic modern term for ancient warships propelled by two or three banks of oarsmen, with three or more files of men per side, sometimes with more than one man per oar, and named after the number of files. Polyremes comprise the trireme (3 files), quadrireme, quinquereme, hexareme or sexireme (probably a trireme with two rowers per oar), septireme, octeres, enneres, deceres, and larger polyremes up to a "forty", with 40 files of oarsmen, 130m long, carrying 7,250 rowers, other crew, and marines

Pram (ship)

A pram or pramm is a type of shallow-draught flat-bottomed ship. There is also a type of boat called Pram

Q-ship

A heavily-armed vessel disguised as a merchantman to lure submarines into attacking

Quinquereme

An ancient warship propelled by three banks of oars; respectively the top, middle, and lower banks had two, two, and one (i.e., 5 total) men per oar

Royal Mail Ship

Any ship carrying mail for the British Royal Mail, allocated ship prefix RMS while doing so. Typically a fast liner carrying passengers.

Schooner

A fore and aft-rigged vessel with two or more masts of which the foremast is shorter than the main

Settee

Single-decked, single or double-masted Mediterranean cargo vessel carrying a settee sail

Shallop

A large, heavily built, sixteenth-century boat which is fore-and-aft rigged; more recently a poetically frail open boat

Ship or full-rigged ship

Historically a sailing vessel with three or more full-rigged masts. "Ship" is now used for any large watercraft

Ship of the line [of battle]

A sailing warship generally of first, second or third rate, i.e., with 64 or more guns; until the mid eighteenth century fourth rates (50-60 guns) also served in the line of battle. Succeeded by the powered battleship

Slave ship

A cargo vessel specially converted to transport slaves

Sloop

A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel with a single mast; later a powered warship intermediate in size between a corvette and a frigate

Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH)

A modern design built for stability in rough seas; predominantly used for research vessels

Snow

A small sailing ship, with a foremast, a mainmast and a trysail mast behind the main; sometimes armed as a warship with two to ten guns^[1]

Steamship

A ship propelled by a steam engine; includes steam frigates. Ship prefix SS for merchant vessels

Tartane or tartan

A single-masted ship used for fishing and coastal trading in the Mediterranean from the 17th to the late 19th century, usually rigged with a large lateen sail, and a fore-sail to the bowsprit.

Trabaccolo

A type of Mediterranean coastal sailing vessel

Tramp steamer

A steamer which takes on cargo when and where it can find it

Trireme

An ancient warship propelled by three banks of oars per side

Troopship

A ship used for transporting troops. Large ocean liners, fast enough to outrun warships, were often used for this purpose during wartime

Victory ship

Mass-produced cargo ship of the Second World War as a successor to the Liberty ship

Xebec

A Mediterranean sailing ship, typically three-masted, lateen-rigged and powered also by oars, with a characteristic overhanging bow and stern

Yacht

A recreational boat or ship, sail or powered

Yawl

A yawl is a two masted, fore and aft rigged sailing vessel with the mizzen mast positioned abaft (behind) the rudder stock

Related Research Articles

A sailing ship is a sea-going vessel that uses sails mounted on masts to harness the power of wind and propel the vessel. There is a variety of sail plans that propel sailing ships, employing square-rigged or fore-and-aft sails. Some ships carry square sails on each mast—the brig and full-rigged ship, said to be "ship-rigged" when there are three or more masts. Others carry only fore-and-aft sails on each mast, for instance some schooners. Still others employ a combination of square and fore-and-aft sails, including the barque, barquentine, and brigantine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rig (sailing)</span> Description of the specific ways that a sailing craft is rigged

A sailing vessel's rig is its arrangement of masts, sails and rigging. Examples include a schooner rig, cutter rig, junk rig, etc. A rig may be broadly categorized as "fore-and-aft", "square", or a combination of both. Within the fore-and-aft category there is a variety of triangular and quadrilateral sail shapes. Spars or battens may be used to help shape a given kind of sail. Each rig may be described with a sail plan—formally, a drawing of a vessel, viewed from the side.

A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel with a fully square-rigged foremast and at least two sails on the main mast: a square topsail and a gaff sail mainsail. The main mast is the second and taller of the two masts.

A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the latter part of the 19th century. In commercial use, they were gradually replaced by fore-and-aft rigged vessels such as schooners, as owners sought to reduce crew costs by having rigs that could be handled by fewer men. In Royal Navy use, brigs were retained for training use when the battle fleets consisted almost entirely of iron-hulled steamships.

A xebec, also spelled zebec, was a Mediterranean sailing ship that was used mostly for trading. Xebecs had a long overhanging bowsprit and aft-set mizzen mast. The term can also refer to a small, fast vessel of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, used almost exclusively in the Mediterranean Sea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galleon</span> Large and multi-decked sailing ships

Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships developed in Spain and first used as armed cargo carriers by Europeans from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-1600s. Galleons generally carried three or more masts with a lateen fore-and-aft rig on the rear masts, were carvel built with a prominent squared off raised stern, and used square-rigged sail plans on their fore-mast and main-masts.

A warship or combatant ship is a naval ship that is built and primarily intended for naval warfare. Usually they belong to the armed forces of a state. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are typically faster and more maneuverable than merchant ships. Unlike a merchant ship, which carries cargo, a warship typically carries only weapons, ammunition and supplies for its crew. Warships usually belong to a navy, though they have also been operated by individuals, cooperatives and corporations.

In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term sloop-of-war encompassed all the unrated combat vessels, including the very small gun-brigs and cutters. In technical terms, even the more specialised bomb vessels and fireships were classed as sloops-of-war, and in practice these were employed in the sloop role when not carrying out their specialised functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cutter (boat)</span> Type of boat

A cutter is a name for various types of watercraft. It can apply to the rig of a sailing vessel, to a governmental enforcement agency vessel, to a type of ship's boat which can be used under sail or oars, or, historically, to a type of fast-sailing vessel introduced in the 18th century, some of which were used as small warships.

The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected more or less vertically on the centre-line of a ship or boat. Its purposes include carrying sails, spars, and derricks, giving necessary height to a navigation light, look-out position, signal yard, control position, radio aerial or signal lamp. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship. Nearly all sailing masts are guyed.

The full-rigged pinnace was the larger of two types of vessel called a pinnace in use from the sixteenth century.

This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water. Some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. The word nautical derives from the Latin nauticus, from Greek nautikos, from nautēs: "sailor", from naus: "ship".

A full-rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel with a sail plan of three or more masts, all of them square-rigged. Such a vessel is said to have a ship rig or be ship-rigged, with each mast stepped in three segments: lower, top, and topgallant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fore-and-aft rig</span> Sailing rig consisting mainly of sails

A fore-and-aft rig is a sailing vessel rigged mainly with sails set along the line of the keel, rather than perpendicular to it as on a square rigged vessel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polacca</span> Type of ship used in the 17th–19th centuries

A polacca is a type of seventeenth- to nineteenth-century sailing vessel, similar to the xebec. The name is the feminine of "Polish" in the Italian language. The polacca was frequently seen in the Mediterranean. It had two or three single-pole masts, the three-masted vessels often with a lateen hoisted on the foremast and a gaff or lateen on the mizzen mast. The mainmast was square-rigged after the European style. Special polaccas were used by Murat Reis, whose ships had lateen sails in front and fore-and-aft rig behind.

A foresail is one of a few different types of sail set on the foremost mast (foremast) of a sailing vessel:

Medieval ships were the vessels used in Europe during the Middle Ages. Like ships from antiquity, they were moved by sails, oar or a combination of the two. There was a large variety, mostly based on much older, conservative designs. Although wider and more frequent communications within Europe meant exposure to a variety of improvements, experimental failures were costly and rarely attempted. Ships in the north were influenced by Viking vessels, while those in the south by classical or Roman vessels. However, there was technological change. The different traditions used different construction methods; clinker in the north, carvel in the south. By the end of the period, carvel construction would come to dominate the building of large ships. The period would also see a shift from the steering oar or side rudder to the stern rudder and the development from single-masted to multi-masted ships. As the area is connected by water, people in the Mediterranean built different kinds of ships to accommodate different sea levels and climates. Within the Mediterranean area during the Medieval times ships were used for a multitude of reasons, like war, trade, and exploration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galiot</span> Ship type

A galiot, galliot or galiote, was a small galley boat propelled by sail or oars. There are three different types of naval galiots that sailed on different seas.

This glossary of nautical terms is an alphabetical listing of terms and expressions connected with ships, shipping, seamanship and navigation on water. Some remain current, while many date from the 17th to 19th centuries. The word nautical derives from the Latin nauticus, from Greek nautikos, from nautēs: "sailor", from naus: "ship".

This glossary defines the various types of ships and accessory watercraft that have been used in service of the United States. Such service is mainly defined as military vessels used in the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard, as well as the defunct, incorporated, or renamed institutions such as the United States Revenue Cutter Service. Service of the United States can also be defined in this context as special government missions in the form of expeditions, such as the Wilkes Expedition or the North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition. The scope of the glossary encompasses both the "Old Navy" of the United States, from its beginnings as the "Continental Navy", through the "New Navy" and up to modern day. The watercraft included in the glossary are derived from United States ships with logbooks published by the National Archives and Records Administration.

References

↑ Oxford English Dictionary, Compact Edition, p. 2896

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[1] Oxford English Dictionary, Compact Edition, p. 2896

[1]

List of ship types

See also

Related Research Articles

References