Mast (sailing) single pieces of timber, which were known as pole masts. For square-sail carrying ship, the masts, given their standard names in bow to stern (front to back) order, are: Some names given to masts in ships carrying other types of rig (where the naming is less standardised) are: Most types of vessels with two masts are supposed to have a main-mast and a smaller mizzen-mast, although both brigs and two-masted schooners carry a fore-mast and a main-mast instead. On a two-masted vessel with the main-mast forward and a much smaller second mast, such as a ketch, or particularly a yawl,
Sailing have any number of masts provided the second from the front is the tallest (called the "main mast"). In both a ketch and a yawl, the foremost mast is tallest, and thus the main mast, while the rear mast is shorter, and called the mizzen mast. The difference between a ketch and a yawl is that in a ketch, the mizzen mast is forward of the rudderpost (the axis of rotation for the rudder), while a yawl has its mizzen mast behind the rudderpost. In modern parlance, a brigantine is a vessel whose forward mast is rigged with square sails,