pfff... that's not that easily explained. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_confused.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="icon_confused.gif" /> you have to learn what ship type has which rigging. gaff-riggers are usually schooners, though a gaff-rigged sloop is a ketch. if there's a square sail mounted to the top of at least one of the masts of a schooner, it's a topsail schooner. differences between brig types are far more subtle. a brig has more or less the rigging of the stock ship. a brigantine hasn't got a square main course. a snow is roughly the same but with an extra 'snowmast' mounted to the mizzen mast, like on the in-game shnyava. a hermaphrodite brig is what the game calls a brigantine. a barque is basically a three-masted brig. a barquentine is like the hermaphrodite brig but with an extra square-rigged mast, so it has three masts total. there's also a four-masted barque, better known as clippers, though the name is actually derived from the bow. of course, there's also the date at which the ship excisted which is good for checking which ship it is, though the differences are obvious enough to a trained eye. for instance, the difference between a galleon and a caravel is their hull proportions. a caravel is width:height:length 1:2:3, but the galleon is 1:2:4, thus technically far better designed. there's two main types of caravel: the caravela latina, which is fully lateen-rigged, and the caravela redonda, like the Pinta or Nina later in colombus' voyage. galleons get their name from the extended bow-structure, which forms a small deck and bowsprit support. the finer details of the rigging will allow you to determine it's building year. i could go on like this four hours on end, but it comes down to the fact that you have to learn each ship out of the books.