:This article discusses the sailing vessel. For the Japanese animation studio, see Xebec (studio). Xebec was also a disk drive controller company in the 1980's, it provided the controller for the IBM PC/XT.
A xebec ( or ), also spelt zebec, was a Mediterranean sailing ship that was used mostly for trading. It would have a long overhanging bowsprit and protruding mizzenmast. It also can refer to a small, fast vessel of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, used almost exclusively in the Mediterranean Sea.

Description

Xebecs were similar to galleys used by Berber corsairs and Barbary pirates having both lateen sails and oars for propulsion. Early xebecs had two masts; later ones three. Xebecs featured a distinctive hull with pronounced overhanging bow and stern, and rarely displaced more than 200 tons, making them slightly smaller and with slightly fewer guns than frigates of the period.

Notable Xebecs of the French Navy include:

• Ruse, 160 tons, 18 guns, 1750

• Serpent, 160 tons burthen, 18 guns, 1750

• Le Requin, 260 tons burthen, 24 guns, 1750

• Indiscret, 260 tons burthen, 24 guns, 1750

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a large polacre-xebec carried a square rig on the foremast, lateen sails on the other masts, a bowsprit, and two headsails. The square sail distinguished this form of a xebec from that of a felucca which is equipped solely with lateen sails. The last of the xebecs in use by European navies were fully square-rigged and were termed xebec-frigates.

Sea-going Mediterranean peoples greatly favoured xebecs as corsairs, and for this purpose built them with a narrow floor to achieve a higher speed than their victims, but with a considerable beam in order to enable them to carry an extensive sail-plan. The lateen rig of the xebec allowed for the ship to sail close hauled to the wind often giving it an advantage in pursuit or escape. The use of oars or sweeps allowed the xebec to approach vessels who were becalmed. When used as corsairs they carried a crew of 300 to 400 men and mounted perhaps 16 to 40 guns according to size. In peacetime operations, the xebec could transport merchandise.

Etymology

Xebec is also written as xebeck, xebe(c)que, zebec(k), zebecque, chebec, shebeck (); from Catalan: xebec, , , , , , and )
Words similar in form and meaning to xebec occur in Catalan, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic and Turkish. The Online Etymology Dictionary regards the Arabic shabbak (meaning "a small warship") as the source form, however the Arabic root means 'a net', implying the word originally referred to a fishing boat.

The Spanish jabeque had only lateen sails, as portrayed in the Cazador. This ship was built and used by the Spanish crown in the mid eighteenth century to fight Algerian corsairs (privateers) in the Mediterranean Sea. Algerian Berber corsairs also used three-lateen-sail xebecs in their raids on Mediterranean trade.

See also

• USS Champion (1777)