Image: Wikimedia Commons

brig

Sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts

Entityship typeQ202539

Instance of: ship type
Subclass of: two-masted ship

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

A brig is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: two masts which are both square-rigged. Brigs originated in the second half of the 18th century and were a common type of smaller merchant vessel or warship from then until the latter part of the 19th century. In commercial use, they were gradually replaced by fore-and-aft rigged vessels such as schooners, as owners sought to reduce crew costs by having rigs that could be handled by fewer men. In Royal Navy use, brigs were retained for training use when the battle fleets consisted almost entirely of iron-hulled steamships.

Overview

All data

18 statements · 28% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Country of origin: Mediterranean Sea
Different from: Brigg

On other databases

14 identifiers linking brig across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

28%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 29, 2026. AIDb refreshes this page daily.

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AIDb. (2026). brig (Q202539). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/brig-Q202539