Schooner, a sailing ship rigged with fore-and-aft sails on its two or more mast. To the foremast there may also be rigged one or more square topsails or, more commonly, one or more jib sails or Bermuda sails (triangular sails extending forward to the bowsprit or jibboom). Though it probably was based on a Dutch design of the 17th century, the first genuine schooner was developed in the British North American colonies, probably at Gloucester, Massachusetts, in 1713, by a shipbuilder named Andrew Robinson.