My object in the following chapters has been to present the reader with a clear and concise account of how the sail-propelled craft developed in the long evolution from the dug-out to the five-masted barque of the twentieth century.

Preface.

Inasmuch as the human race sprang from the land and not the sea, all the nautical arts of shipbuilding, rigging, and handling were a matter of slow and costly development.

Chapter I. The earliest of all rigs.