Good afternoon, guys!
When I was a child, I saw a movies about the Barbary Wars, it was called "the sands of Tripoli" with Maureen O'Hara as main female character. I was impressed of the power of the Barbary corsairs, and the hability of recolecting taxes and ransoms from almost every country with any form of trade with the Mediterranean. That film, and Robinson Crusoe´s capture by a Sale pirate, remained in my memory.
Later, I learned about the slave trade and specially the "white slave" between North Africa and the rest of the Islam, with strong emphasis in the Ottoman Empire, the terror lived in the coasts of Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Croatia and Greece, the swift barbary coast vessels and the bold attacks even as far as Iceland.
The term xebec / shebeck / sciabecco / jabeque derived from the arabic shabbak (meaning "a small warship") and was the main vessel of the Barbary States corsairs. Xebecs featured a distinctive hull with pronounced overhanging bow and stern and lateen sails; the lateen rig of the xebec allowed the ship to sail close hauled to the wind, often giving it an advantage in pursuit or escape. Xebecs rarely displaced more than 200 tons and had around 20-30 cannons.
![[ img ]](https://i.imgur.com/Nmp7lQA.png)
In the mid XVII century, Mourad Rais (Jan Janszoon van Haarlem), a Dutch corsair of Algeirs converted to Islam, modified the xebec adding square sails to the mainmast, creating the polacre / polacra / polacca; which was as handy as the xebec, but faster with winds from behind.
![[ img ]](https://i.imgur.com/Ajfedz7.png)
These two types of Barbary corsair vessels were so successful that the European maritime powers copied for their Navies, not only from Spain, France, Italy or Sardinia, but also from coutries far from the Mediterranean Sea like Russia and Sweden.
After the introduccion of steam machinery, and specially after the suppression of the Pirate States, both the xebec and polacre remanined as trade vessels, frequently changing the rig, adding more square sails.
Credits: I begun these pair of drawings several years ago, and I owed a lot to two fellow bucketeers: Darth Panda and Luis, and as cheeting is a sincere form of praise, I recognized that I got many ideas from their magnificent drawings. Thanks to both of them.
Remarks: I choose the flag of Tunis mainly because it is much more easy to recognize. In the polacre, the main mast is flying the flag of the Ottoman Empire, because nominally at least, Tunis, Tripoli, Algeria and Sale were provinces (eyalats) of the Sublime Porte. The red and yellow flag of Algeirs is too much Catalonian like, and the others were green, the Prophet´s color, and only differs in mere details, and green was the color selected by many pirates as a pesonal banner. Cheers.
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