Trincadour (from the Portuguese ''troingador''), was a type of small, undecked, flat-bottomed, coasting vessel with a raised bow. Trincadours had two or three

lug sail The lug sail, or lugsail, is a fore-and-aft, four-cornered sail that is suspended from a spar, called a yard. When raised, the sail area overlaps the mast. For "standing lug" rigs, the sail may remain on the same side of the mast on both the port ...

s on horizontal yards, or

lateen A lateen (from French ''latine'', meaning "Latin") or latin-rig is a triangular sail set on a long yard mounted at an angle on the mast, and running in a fore-and-aft direction. The settee can be considered to be an associated type of the same ...

sails. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, they were common in the Bay of Biscay, though they would often be found in the Mediterranean. The

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

of the time purchased some for various purposes and had several built to use as gunboats. On 24 February 1801 captured the French naval brig ''Caroline'', of four guns, which had been carrying ordnance stores from Genoa to Alexandria. French records report that ''Caroline'' was a ''biscayenne'' or ''trincadour'' commissioned at Lorient in June 1798, of only six tons (displacement; French), and a crew of 24 men. She originally was armed with one 36-pounder ''obusier''. She was carrying despatches from Egypt when ''Speedy'' captured her in the Bay of Tunis.

Citations

References

*de Roquefort, B. (1828) ''Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Françoise''. * {{Sailing vessels and rigs Sailboat types Boat types