When is a schooner?
 

Can a boat that is nominally a schooner (two masts with main aft) still be a schooner when the main is jib-headed and there is no staysail (and no forestay) at all but a club-footed jib? Or does this bizarre-looking rig have a more accurate name?
Thanks in advance.

Certainly. Neither having but one jib, as Malabar II has, not having a marconi main makes a boat not a schooner.

You might get more of an argument about what Capt Pete Culler called his periauger schooner scow which had no headsails but just fore and main. But that's just a distinction to define the type of schooner, just as one might distinguish a staysail schooner from other types.

You can even add more clutter is you think the LFH Marco Polo is something other than a schooner, with three masts fore, main and mizzen, each with triangular sail, and as designed a knockabout bow and simple jib.

I'm familiar with several junk rigged schooners, and the Freedom 39 cat schooner, none of which have headsails

If there are two masts, and the after one is taller, or they are the same size, it meets the definition of a schooner.

"If there are two masts, and the after one is taller, or they are the same size, it meets the definition of a schooner."

Unless it's a brig or a brigantine. :D

I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a pedant's voice.
- apologies to Leonard Cohen

Thanks guys,
Just trying to be as precise as I can with my terms. One hates to use the wrong nomenclature, especially at sea.

Usage
 

Hello,
Yeah, sailors can be touchy about terminology. Maybe too touchy, in that precision should lead to clarity, not ego-gratifying punctiliousness. It doesn't help that the term "schooner" can mean a whole lot of things, including vessels with squares'ls on one or more masts. But if it isn't a ship, barque, barquentine, brig, snow, or brigantine, if it has at least two masts, and if the masts are either the same height, or the aft one is taller, it's safe to call it a schooner. Though for some of the odder ones, the term "bizarrentine" comes in handy.
Fair leads,
Brion Toss