Brigantines of the Russian fleet

Consideration of the emergence and development of the brigantine class as part of the Russian fleet will clarify the classification of its ship structure. At the beginning of the 18th century, Italian brigantines were built for the Russian rowing fleet. It was small galleys with oars and one or two masts with triangular Latin sails. In 1706, Peter I made a project of a Russian type brigantine with a gaff mainsail on the mast and a jib on the bowsprit. The brigantines were 51 feet 10 inches (15.8 m) long. These vessels were better adapted to voyages in the sea. In 1736, a boat by the British proportion known as the brigantine Archangel Michael was built for the expedition of V. Bering. The brigantine had a length of 60 ft (18.29 m). The Russian Navy also had Swedish trophy two-masted brigantines. These vessels had two masts with square sails and a gaff mainsail. Ulrika was captured in 1704, it had a length of 55 Swedish feet (16.34 m). The drawing of 1702 shows a bowsprit and a jib-boom, a course and a topsail on the foremast, a topsail and a gaff mainsail with a boom on the mainmast. In the European fleet of the second half of the 18th century, the terms "brig" and "brigantine" were synonymous. Brigantines were part of the Russian Navy of the second half of the 18th century. The Russian Navy had special brigantine proportions of the mast which included a gaff and a boom. Brigantines had a foremast, a mainmast and the rigging of the brig, or a mainmast, a mizzen mast and the rigging of the galiot. The Central Naval Museum of Russia stores the logbook of the brigantine Saint Catherine, which brought the Embassy to Japan in 1792. The logbook names the sails: the jib, the topsail, the breefok, the mainsail, the mizzen - the rigging of the galiot with grot- and mizzen masts. These sails are depicted in Japanese paintings while the ship was on the island of Hokkaido. The mizzen sail was put up by the gaff and stretched along the boom. In the Russian fleet of the late18th and early 19th centuries, small brigs were called brigantines. The Russian State Naval Archives has a drawing of the rigging of a brigantine, which shows a small brig of 60 feet (18.29 m) long. The two-masted ship has four tiers of square sails on both masts and a gaff mainsail with a boom, the straight mainsail is not shown. Consequently, the term brigantine in the second half of the 18th century refers to a class, not to a type of vessels. Vessels with a foremast with square sails and a mainmast with a gaff sail in the first half of the 19th century were called the schooner-brig. At the end of the 19th century they were referred to as brigantines.

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