Settee (sail)

The settee sail was a lateen sail with the front corner cut off, giving it a quadrilateral shape. The settee sail requires a shorter yard than does the lateen, and both settee and lateen have shorter masts than square-rigged sails.

History of the sail form

The settee's history can be traced back to navigation in the Mediterranean Sea in late antiquity; the oldest evidence is from a late 5th-century ship in a Roman mosaic at Kelenderis in Cilicia on the southern coast of Anatolia. It lasted well into the 20th century as a common sail on Arab dhows and on the Gozo boat of Malta.
image:Sambuk.jpg|right|thumb|Model of a sambuk with two settee sails

Settee (boat)

Settees then were a sharp-prowed, single-decked merchant sailing vessel found in the Mediterranean, in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Spaniards also used them in the New World.
Settees had two lateen-rigged masts, like xebecs or galleys, but carrying settee sails. They sailed well to windward and could sail downwind. Some polaccas carried a settee sail, giving rise to the polacca-settee.
Between the 1880s and the 1960s, Gozo boats had a settee rig.