A schooner is a type of sailing vessel with fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts. The most common type has two masts, the foremast being shorter than the main. While the schooner was originally gaff-rigged, modern schooners typically carry a Bermuda rig.
== Etymology ==
The first detailed definition of a schooner, describing the vessel as two-masted vessel with fore and aft gaff-rigged sails appeared in 1769 in William Falconer's, Universal Dictionary of the Marine.According to the language scholar Walter William Skeat, the term schooner comes from scoon, while the sch spelling comes from...