Spéronare

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 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.

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