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Until the 20th century, a ship's masts would be wooden spars, originally constructed from a single straight tree trunk. As ship sizes increased, taller masts were constructed by lashing up to three spars together.
A ship's masts are named from bow to stern (front to back):
Mast names for other vessels generally follow this naming.
Many ships would also have bowsprit at an angle closer to the horizontal extending forward of the prow .
Most types of ship with two masts would have a main-mast and a smaller mizzen-mast, the exception being the two masted schooner which has a fore-mast and main-mast. On a two-masted vessel with the mainmast forward and a much smaller second mast, such as a ketch, or particularly a yawl, the terms mizzen and jigger are synonymous.
Some two-masted schooners have masts of identical size, but the aftmost is still referred to as the main-mast, and normally has the larger course. Schooners have been built with up to seven masts in all, with several six-masted examples.
On square rigged vessels, each mast carries several horizontal yardarms from which the individual sails are hung, see also rigging.
Although sailing ships had been superceded by engine powered ships in the 19th century, the design of recreational sailing ships and yachts. In the 1930s aluminium masts were introduced on large J-class yachts. Aluminium has considerable advantages over wooden masts, being lighter, stronger and impervious to rot. Also aluminium mast could be extruded as a single piece for the entire height as the mast.
After the Second World War, extruded aluminium masts became common on all dinghies and smaller yachts. Higher performance yachts would use tapered aluminium masts, constructed by removing a triangular strip of aluminium along the length of the mast and then closing and welding the gap.
From the mid 1990sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s 2040s Years: Events and trends Computers, technology Explosive growth of the Internet; decrease in the cost of computers and other techn racing yachts introduced the use of carbon fibre and other composite materialComposite materials (or composites for short) are engineering materials made from two or more components. One component is often a strong fibre such as fiberglass, kevlar or carbon fibre that gives the material its tensile strength, while another componens to construct masts with even better strength to weight ratios. Carbon fibre masts could also be constructed with more precisely engineered aerodynamic profiles.