European sailing ships with predominantly square rigs became prevalent during the Age of Discovery (15th to 17th centuries), when they crossed oceans between continents and around the world. In the European Age of Sail, a full-rigged ship was one with a bowsprit and three masts, each of which consists of a lower, top, and topgallant mast. Most sailing ships were merchantmen, but the Age of Sail also saw the development of large fleets of well-armed warships. The many steps of technological development of steamships during the 19th century provided slowly increasing competition for sailing ships – initially only on short routes where high prices could be charged. By the 1880s, ships with triple-expansion steam engines had the fuel efficiency to compete with sail on all major routes – and with scheduled sailings that were not affected by the wind direction. However, commercial sailing vessels could still be found working into the 20th century, although in reducing numbers and only in certain trades.

A jackass-barque, sometimes spelled jackass bark, is a sailing ship with three (or more) masts, of which the foremast is square-rigged and the main is partially square-rigged (topsail, topgallant, etc.) and partially fore-and-aft rigged (course). The mizzen mast is fore-and-aft rigged.

A four-masted jackass barque is square-rigged on the two foremost masts (fore and main masts) and fore-and-aft rigged on the two after masts (the mizzen and spanker or jiggermasts). Some 19th-century sailors called such a ship "a fore-and-aft schooner chasing a brig". In general a jackass barque is a sailing ship which is half square-rigged and half fore-and-aft rigged. The name appears to be an erroneous reference to a mule, which is half horse and half donkey.

A five-masted jackass barque, which has probably never been built, would be equipped with square-rigged fore and main masts, with a partially square-rigged and partially fore-and-aft rigged mizzen mast, and fore-and-aft rigged jigger and spanker masts.

The Olympic

A well-known example of a (white wood-hulled) four-masted jackass-barque was the Olympic, a 1,402 GRT "Down Easter" (a square-rigged sailing ship from the dockyards of the downeastern ports, preferably made of timber). Said to be the only one in the world, she was launched in 1892 at the shipyard of the New England Ship Building Company, Bath, ME, for Captain W. H. Besse of New Bedford, MA¹. Her maiden voyage under her first master, Captain Stephen Bourne Gibbs, led her from Bath to New York City, South Street Seaport, with "clean swept holds" and without any ballast, then with a cargo of iron rails and plates around Cape Horn to Portland, Oregon. She carried steel, nitrate, and other cargoes. Captain Gibbs was an experienced square-rigged skipper, and took great care of best stowage of the cargo, having the stevedores put 2/3 of it in the 'tween decks. For her new owner, Hackfield & Co. of Honolulu, managed by Williams, Dimond & Co., the Olympic ran in the sugar trade between Hawaii, California, and Australia from 1901 to 1912. Originally rigged with royal sails over double top and topgallant sails on both square-rigged masts and the main mast equipped with an additional single sky sail, she was re-fitted with royal sails over double top but single topgallant sails on both square-rigged masts and no main sky sail after being dismasted in 1901 during a voyage from Hawaii to San Francisco under Captain Gibbs, who retired from the sea in the same year. Under her new master Captain T. H. Evans she sailed between New Zealand, Australia and the US west coast in the timber trade. Towards the end of World War I she changed hands to Thomas Crowley & Co. In that time she was re-rigged as a four-masted barquentine with a square-rigged foremast and three fore-and-aft rigged other masts. During the slump years cargo space of a sailing ship wasn't needed anymore. After being laid up for some years the 30-year-old ship was converted into a towing barge.

The California

A well-known example of a steel four-masted jackass-barque was the California (1890), the last and largest of the White Star sailing ships. The use of steel enabled the addition of another hundred feet to the two hundred foot effective maximum length of a wooden vessel. A fourth mast, called the jigger, provided the driving power for the increased length. The lower and topmast were built in one steel tubular piece. Mechanical improvements were introduced to the rigging.

On the Great Lakes

The City of Grand Haven had two masts "set far apart to accommodate high piles of lumber on the deck and to make it easier to load and unload the vessel. This rig was called the Grand Haven Rig or (Jack Ass Rig)..." It was said to have been the result of a serendipity, when the master of a three-masted schooner had its mainmast removed due to rot, and found how well the ship sailed. There "were at least a dozen craft with this rig many of them in Lake Michigan." Similar rigs might be called a "jackass schooner."^[3]

ILLUSTRATOR/ARTIST:

Anton Otto Fischer (February 23, 1882 – March 26, 1962) was an illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post.

Background

Born in (Germany) and orphaned at any early age, he ran away at the age of 15 to escape being forced into priesthood. He came to America as a deck hand on a German vessel. He sacrificed two months’ pay to obtain his freedom and then went on to sail on American ships for three years. For a fourteen-month period in 1905–1906, he worked as a model and general handyman for artist Arthur Burdette Frost. He went to Paris in October 1906 and studied for two years with Jean Paul Laurens at the Academie Julian, spending summers painting landscapes in Normandy. Fischer returned to New York City in January 1908. After being influenced by Howard Pyle, he moved to Wilmington, Delaware where he established a studio at 1110 Franklin Street. Pyle helped him transform his firsthand knowledge into pictorial drama, but had little success in enlivening his lead-colored palette. He freelanced in "subject pictures," or illustrations telling a human interest story that were in popular magazines of the day. During World War II he was made the artist laureate of the United States Coast Guard.

Fischer married Mary Ellen ("May") Sigsbee (1877–1960) following her divorce from fellow artist William Balfour Ker (1877–1918). Sigsbee, Balfour Ker and Fischer were all artist and former students of Howard Pyle. After marriage, he adopted his wife's son from her first marriage, David (1906–1922). They first lived in Bushnellsville, New York before moving to a house near the intersection of Elmendorf Street and Ten Broeck Avenue in nearby Kingston. The house still stands today and has a large north facing window that gave Fischer the light he needed to paint. In 1914, the couple had a child of their own, Katrina Sigsbee Fischer (1914–1998). The family eventually settled into a house off Glasco Turnpike in Woodstock, New York just prior to World War II.

Career as an illustrator

After moving back to New York City in 1910, Fischer sold his first illustration to "Harper's Weekly", then illustrated an "Everybody's Magazine" story by Jack London, for whom he would illustrate many books and magazine stories until London's death in 1916. Also in 1910, Fischer began illustrating for "The Saturday Evening Post", a relationship that would last for forty-eight years. He illustrated such stories as Kyne's "Cappy Ricks," Gilpatrick's "Glencannon," as well as serials by Kenneth Roberts, and Nordoff and Hall.^[1] From 1909 to 1920 he created more than one-thousand illustrations featuring women and babies, pretty girls, dogs and horses, sports, the Navy and the sea. He later went on to illustrate Tugboat Annie in 1931. He confessed his favorite character was "that old reprobate Glencannon," with the big broom moustache.

U.S. Navy Commander Lincoln Lothrop had once written to the artist: “My two lads, one of whom is now a twenty-two-year-old lieutenant in the Navy … used to cut out your pictures and pin them on the walls of their rooms. … You are responsible for recruiting many a seagoing lad.” His work on seas scapes got Fischer an invitation to lunch with Vice Admiral Russell Waesche, Commandant of the Coast Guard for the purpose of recruiting at the height of World War II. The January 9, 1943, Post described a good encounter with the Vice Admiral. Although Waesche knew Fischer was born in (Germany) and anti-New Dealer, but by late that same afternoon, Fischer was sworn in as a lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard. He was charged with putting on canvas some of the heroic deeds of the Merchant Mariners and Coast Guardsmen, then considered at the time the least publicized men of the armed forces.^] His drawings are archived in the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.

Also known for illustrating books such as Moby Dick, Treasure Island, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Anton Otto Fischer died far from his beloved sea in the Catskill Mountains of Woodstock, New York, in 1962 at the age of 80.

The Friends of Historic Kingston hosted a lecture featuring Fischer's great-nephew, Andre Mele, in September 2011. Mele remembered 'Uncle Otto' with a heavy German accent who often enjoyed playing the piano and smoking cigars. He could frequently be found gardening or listening to the New York Yankees on the radio through his headphones. Fischer was often sought after for his investment advice and amassed a $2 million fortune during his lifetime.