Lateen in the context of "Yard (sailing)"

A carrack (Portuguese: nau; Spanish: nao; Catalan: carraca) is a three- or four-masted ocean-going sailing ship that was developed in the 14th to 15th centuries in Europe, most notably in Portugal and Spain. Evolving from the single-masted cog, the carrack was first used for European trade from the Mediterranean to the Baltic and quickly found use with the newly found wealth of the trade between Europe and Africa and then the trans-Atlantic trade with the Americas. In their most advanced forms, they were used by the Portuguese and Spaniards for trade between Europe, Africa and Asia starting in the late 15th century, before being gradually superseded in the late 16th and early 17th centuries by the galleon.

In its most developed form, the carrack was a carvel-built ocean-going ship: large enough to be stable in heavy seas, and capacious enough to carry a large cargo and the provisions needed for very long voyages. The later carracks were square-rigged on the foremast and mainmast and lateen-rigged on the mizzenmast. They had a high rounded stern with aftcastle, forecastle and bowsprit at the stem. As the predecessor of the galleon, the carrack was one of the most influential ship designs in history; while ships became more specialized in the following centuries, the basic design remained unchanged throughout this period.

The caravel (Portuguese: caravela, IPA: [kɐɾɐˈvɛlɐ]) was a small sailing ship developed by Portugal. It could be rigged either entirely with lateen sails or with a combination of lateen and square sails. It was known for its agility and speed and its capacity for sailing windward (beating). Caravels were used by the Portuguese and, later, by the Spanish for the voyages of exploration during the 15th and 16th centuries, in the Age of Exploration.

The caravel is a poorly understood type of vessel. Though there are now some archaeologically investigated wrecks that are most likely caravels, information on this type is limited. We have a better understanding of the ships of the Greeks and Romans of classical antiquity than we do of the caravel.

Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships developed in Spain and Portugal. They were first used as armed cargo carriers by Europeans from the 16th to 18th centuries during the Age of Sail, and they were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the mid-17th century. Galleons generally carried three or more masts with a lateen fore-and-aft rig on the rear masts, were carvel built with a prominent squared off raised stern, and used square-rigged sail plans on their fore-mast and main-masts.

Such ships played a major role in commerce in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and were often drafted into use as auxiliary naval war vessels—indeed, they were the mainstay of contending fleets through most of the 150 years of the Age of Exploration—before the Anglo-Dutch wars made purpose-built warships dominant at sea during the remainder of the Age of Sail.

The crab claw sail is a fore-and-aft triangular sail with spars along upper and lower edges. The crab claw sail was first developed by the Austronesian peoples by at least 2000 BCE. It is sometimes known as the Oceanic lateen or the Oceanic sprit, even though it is not restricted to Oceania, is neither a lateen sail nor a spritsail, and has an independent older origin.

Dhow (/daʊ/; Arabic: داو, romanized: dāw) is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Typically sporting long thin hulls, dhows are trading vessels primarily used to carry heavy items, such as fruit, fresh water, or other heavy merchandise, along the coasts of Eastern Arabia, Iran, East Africa, Yemen and coastal South Asia. Larger dhows have crews of approximately thirty and smaller ones typically around twelve.

Trinidad (Spanish for "Trinity") was the flagship (capitana) of Ferdinand Magellan's 1519–22 voyage of circumnavigation. Unlike the Victoria, which successfully returned to Spain after sailing across the Indian Ocean under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano, Trinidad attempted yet failed to sail east across the Pacific to New Spain.

Trinidad was a nao (carrack) of 100 or 110 tonels with square sails on the fore and main masts and a lateen mizzen. Its original crew was 61.

The settee sail was a lateen sail with the front corner cut off, giving it a quadrilateral shape. The settee sail requires a shorter yard than does the lateen, and both settee and lateen have shorter masts than square-rigged sails.