List of historical ship types.

History of ships...

This is a list of historical ship types, which includes any classification of ship that has ever been used, excluding smaller vessels considered to be boats. The classifications are not all mutually exclusive; a vessel may be both a full-rigged ship by description, and a collier or frigate by function.

 1. Aircraft Carrier: Naval vessel able to launch and retrieve airplanes

2.       Amphibious warfare ship: Vessels of various sizes for landing personnel and vehicles

3.       Aviso: (Spanish or French) originally a dispatch boat, later applied to ships equivalent to the Royal Navy sloop

4.       Barque: A sailing vessel with three or more masts, fore-and-aft rigged on only the aftermost

5.       Barquentine: A sailing vessel with three or more masts, square-rigged only on the foremast

6.       Battlecruiser: A heavily-armed cruiser similar to a battleship but possessing less armour

7.       Battleship: A large, heavily armoured and heavily gunned powered warship

8.       Bilander: A ship or brig with a lug-rigged mizzen sail

9.       Bireme: An ancient vessel, propelled by two banks of oars

10.   Birlinn: (Scots) Clinker-built vessel, single-masted with a square sail also capable of being rowed

11.   Blockade runner: A ship whose current business is to slip past a blockade

12.   Boita: A cargo vessel used for trade between Eastern India and Indochina

13.   Brig: A two-masted, square-rigged vessel

14.   Brigantine: A two-masted vessel, square-rigged on the foremast and fore-and-aft rigged on the main

15.   Caravel: (Portuguese) A much smaller, two, sometimes three-masted ship

16.   Carrack: Three or four masted ship, square-rigged forward, lateen-rigged aft; 14th to 16th century successor to the cog

17.   Cartel: A small boat used to negotiate between enemies

18.   Catboat: A sailing vessel characterized by a single mast carried well forward (i.e., near the bow of the boat)

19.   Clipper:  A fast multiple-masted sailing ship, generally used by merchants because of their speed capabilities

20.   Coastal defense ship: A vessel built for coastal defense

21.   Cog: Plank built, one mast, square rigged, 12th to 14th century, superseded the longship

22.   Collier: A vessel designed for the coal trade

23.   Corvette: A small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, generally smaller than a frigate

24.   Cruise ship: A ship used for carrying passengers on pleasure cruises

25.   Cruiser: A warship that is generally larger than a destroyer, but smaller than a battleship

26.   Destroyer: A warship mainly used for anti-submarine warfare

27.   Destroyer escort: A lighter destroyer intended primarily for escort duties

28.   Dhow: traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region

29.   Dreadnought: An early twentieth century type of battleship characterized by an "all big gun" armament

30.   Pre-dreadnought: Battleships predating the dreadnought, characterized by having an offensive battery of mixed calibers

31.   Drekar: A Viking longship with sails and oars

32.   Dromons: Ancient precursors to galleys

 33. East Indiaman: An armed merchantman belonging to one of the East India companies

34.   Felucca: A traditional Arab type of sailing vessel

35.   Fire ship: A vessel of any sort, set on fire and sent forth to cause consternation and destruction, rendering an enemy vulnerable

36.   Fluyt: A Dutch-made vessel from the Golden Age of Sail, with multiple decks and usually three square-rigged masts, usually used for merchant purposes

37.   Flüte (FrenchEn flûte, "as a fluyt"): A sailing warship used as a transport, with a reduced armament

38.   Frigate: A term used for warships of many sizes and roles over the past few centuries

39.   Galleass: A sailing and rowing warship, equally well suited to sailing and rowing

40.   Galleon: A sixteenth century sailing warship

41.   Galley: A warship propelled by oars with a sail for use in a favourable wind

42.   Galliot: Name refers to several types of sailing vessel, usually two-masted

43.   Gunboat: Various small armed vessels, originally sail and later powered

44.   Ironclad: A wooden warship with external iron plating

45.   Junk: A Chinese sailing ship that widely used in ancient Far East and South China Sea which includes many variants such as Fu Ship, Kwong Ship.

46.   Karve: A small type of Viking longship

47.   Knarr: A large type of Viking cargo ship, fit for Atlantic crossings

48.   Lorcha: A sailing ship with mixed Chinese (rig) and western design (hull) that used since 16th century in Far East.

49.   Landing Ship, Tank: Military ship for landing troops and vehicles

50.   Liberty ship: A type of welded American merchant ship of the late Second World War period, designed for rapid construction in large quantity

51.   Liner or ocean liner: A large passenger ship, usually running on a regular schedule. The same vessel may be used as a cruise ship

52.   Littoral combat ship (LCS): US warship intermediate in size between a corvette and a frigate, similar to a sloop

53.   Longship: A Viking raiding ship

54.Man-of-war: A heavily-armed sailing warship

55.   Merchantman: A trading vessel

56. Armed merchantman: A trading vessel possessing weapons for self-defense

57. Merchant aircraft carrier: A merchant vessel capable of launching aircraft

  58.   Merchant raider: An armed vessel used for raiding disguised as a merchant vessel

59.   Mistico: Small, fast two or three-masted Mediterranean sailing vessel

60.   Monitor: A small, very heavily gunned warship with shallow draft, designed for coastal operations

61. Motor ship or motor vessel: A vessel powered by a non-steam engine, typically diesel. Ship prefix MS or MV

62.   Nef: A large medieval sailing ship

63.   Packet: A sailing ship that carried mail, passengers and freight

64.   Paddle steamer: A steam-propelled, paddle-driven vessel

65.   Panterschepen (Dutch) or Pansarskepp (Swedish): Types of ironclad, heavy gunboats designed for coastal or colonial service

66.   Penteconter: An ancient warship propelled by 50 oars, 25 on each side

67.   Pinisi (or Phinisi): A fast, two-masted ship traditionally used by the Bugis of Eastern Indonesia

68.   Polyreme: A generic modern term for ancient warships propelled by two or three banks of oarsmen, with three or more files of men per side, sometimes with more than one man per oar, and named after the number of files. Polyremes comprise the trireme (3 files), quadrireme, quinquereme, hexareme or sexireme (probably a trireme with two rowers per oar), septireme, octeres, enneres, deceres, and larger polyremes up to a "forty", with 40 files of oarsmen, 130m long, carrying 7,250 rowers, other crew, and marines

69.   Pram (ship): A pram or pramm is a type of shallow-draught flat-bottomed ship. There is also a type of boat called Pram

70.   Q-ship: A heavily-armed vessel disguised as a merchantman to lure submarines into attacking

71.   Quinquereme: An ancient warship propelled by three banks of oars; respectively the top, middle, and lower banks had two, two, and one (i.e., 5 total) men per oar

72.   Royal Mail Ship: Any ship carrying mail for the British Royal Mail, allocated ship prefix RMS while doing so. Typically a fast liner carrying passengers.

73.   Schooner: A fore and aft-rigged vessel with two or more masts of which the foremast is shorter than the main

74.   Settee: Single-decked, single or double-masted Mediterranean cargo vessel carrying a settee sail

75.   Shallop: A large, heavily built, sixteenth-century boat which is fore-and-aft rigged; more recently a poetically frail open boat

76.   Ship or full-rigged ship: Historically a sailing vessel with three or more full-rigged masts. "Ship" is now used for any large watercraft

77.   Ship of the line [of battle]: A sailing warship generally of first, second or third rate, i.e., with 64 or more guns; until the mid-eighteenth century fourth rates (50-60 guns) also served in the line of battle. Succeeded by the powered battleship

78.   Slave ship: A cargo vessel specially converted to transport slaves

79.   Sloop: A fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel with a single mast; later a powered warship intermediate in size between a corvette and a frigate

80.   Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH): A modern design built for stability in rough seas; predominantly used for research vessels

81.   Snow: A small sailing ship, with a foremast, a mainmast and a trysail mast behind the main; sometimes armed as a warship with two to ten guns

82.   Steamship: A ship propelled by a steam engine; includes steam frigates. Ship prefix SS for merchant vessels

83.   Tartane or tartan: A single-masted ship used for fishing and coastal trading in the Mediterranean from the 17th to the late 19th century, usually rigged with a large lateen sail, and a fore-sail to the bowsprit.

84.   Trabaccolo: A type of Mediterranean coastal sailing vessel

85.   Tramp steamer: A steamer which takes on cargo when and where it can find it

86.   Trireme: An ancient warship propelled by three banks of oars per side

87.   Troopship: A ship used for transporting troops. Large ocean liners, fast enough to outrun warships, were often used for this purpose during wartime

88.   Victory ship: Mass-produced cargo ship of the Second World War as a successor to the Liberty ship

89. Xebec: A Mediterranean sailing ship, typically three-masted, lateen-rigged and powered also by oars, with a characteristic overhanging bow and stern

90. Yacht: A recreational boat or ship, sail or powered

 

 

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