That’s the Wavertree, one of the ships on display at the South Street Seaport Museum. Built in 1885, turned into a mastless barge in 1910, restored in 1969 and again in 2015.
All technologies have their own jargon. Some of them are more familiar than others – I’d guess every adult in the country has some idea what a “piston” is – but even when they sound odd they are important in understanding the artifacts of that technology. Since I’m not particularly family with ship technology, I’ve looked it all up, but I could easily have made mistakes.
Wavertree was built long after passenger ships had steam engines, but it still made economic sense to use sail for non-perishable cargo. The ship was also built after iron use had become common and has a wrought iron hull. I believe that the correct designation is a “full rigged ship” as the three masts carry square-rigged sails, where the plane of the sails is perpendicular to the main axis of the hull.
I’ve heard people incorrectly refer to Wavertree as a clipper. Basically, that’s like calling a St. Bernard a greyhound since they’re both dogs. Clippers were full-rigged, but they were built for speed, maximizing sail and with severely streamlined hulls. Wavertree was built to carry a lot of cargo at a slower speed. To give a sense of it, Wavertree has a main deck 263 feet long and 49 feet maximum width.
