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The mast of a sailing ship is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected vertically or near-vertically on the median plane of a ship or boat. A mast may carry , spars, and . It may also give necessary height to a navigation light, look-out position, signal yard, control position, radio aerial, or signal lamp.Layton, Cyril Walter Thomas, Peter Clissold, and A. G. W. Miller. Dictionary of nautical words and terms. Brown, Son & Ferguson, 1973. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship. Nearly all sailing masts are guyed mast.Harland, John. Seamanship in the Age of Sail, pp. 22–5, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1992. .
Until the mid-19th century, all vessels' masts were made of wood, formed from one or several pieces of timber. This was typically the trunk of a single conifer tree; however, from the 16th century, vessels were often built too large for that. Larger vessels needed taller and thicker masts, which could not be made from single tree trunks. To achieve the required height, these masts were built from up to four sections (also called masts). From lowest to highest, these were called "lower", "top", "topgallant", and "royal" masts. For the lower sections to be thick enough, they needed to be built up from multiple pieces of wood. Such a section was known as a made mast, while a section formed from a single piece of timber was known as a pole mast.
Those who specialised in making masts were known as mastmakers.
Some names given to masts in full-rigged ship carrying other types of rig (where the naming is less standardised) are:
When a vessel has two masts, as a general rule, the main mast is the one setting the largest sail. Therefore, in a brig, the forward mast is the foremast and the after mast is the mainmast. In a schooner with two masts, even if the masts are of the same height, the after one usually carries a larger sail (because a longer boom can be used), so the after mast is the mainmast. This contrasts with a ketch or a yawl, where the after mast, and its principal sail, is clearly the smaller of the two, so the terminology is (from forward) mainmast and mizzen. (In a yawl, the term "jigger" is occasionally used for the aftermast.) (2025). 9781861762436, Chatham Publishing. ISBN 9781861762436
Some two-masted luggers have a fore-mast and a mizzen-mast – there is no main-mast. This is because these traditional types used to have three masts, but it was found convenient to dispense with the main-mast and carry larger sails on the remaining masts. This gave more working room, particularly on fishing vessels. (2025). 9780715346792, David and Charles (Publishers) Limited. ISBN 9780715346792
On vessels, each mast carries several horizontal yards from which the individual sails are rigging.Harland, John. Seamanship in the Age of Sail, pp. 20–2, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 1992. .
Folding mast ships use a tabernacle anchor point. Definitions include: "the partly open socket or double post on the deck, into which a mast is fixed, with a pivot near the top so that the mast can be lowered";New Oxford American Dictionary (American English) via Apple Dictionary "large bracket attached firmly to the deck, to which the foot of the mast is fixed; it has two sides or cheeks and a bolt forming the pivot around which the mast is raised and lowered"; "substantial fitting for mounting the mast on deck, so that it can be lowered easily for trailering or for sailing under bridges", "hinged device allowing for the easy folding of a mast 90 degrees from perpendicular, as for transporting the boat on a trailer, or passing under a bridge"
In the West, the concept of a ship carrying more than one mast, to give it more speed under sail and to improve its sailing qualities, evolved in northern Mediterranean waters: The earliest foremast has been identified on an Etruscans pyxis from Caere, Italy, dating to the mid-7th century BC: a warship with a furled mainsail is engaging an enemy vessel, deploying a foresail.Turfa, J. MacIntosh; Steinmayer, A. G. (1999): "The Earliest Foresail, on Another Etruscan Vase", The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 292–296 (295) A two-masted merchant vessel with a sizable foresail rigged on a slightly inclined foremast is depicted in an Etruscan tomb painting from 475 to 450 BC.Lionel Casson (1963): "The Earliest Two-masted Ship", Archaeology, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 108–111 (111) An artemon (Greek language for foresail) almost the same size as the galley's mainsail can be found on a krater as early as the late 6th century BC; apart from that Ancient Greece longships are uniformly shown without it until the 4th century BC.Lionel Casson (1980): "Two-masted Greek ships", The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 68–69 (69) In the East, ancient Indian Kingdoms like the Kalinga from as early as 2nd century are believed to have commanded naval sail ships. One of the earliest documented evidence of Indian sail building comes from the mural of the three-masted ship in Ajanta caves that date back to 400–500 CE.
The foremast became fairly common on Roman navy, where, inclined at an angle of 45°, it was more akin to a bowsprit, and the foresail set on it, reduced in size, seems to be used rather as an aid to steering than for propulsion.Lionel Casson (1963): "The Earliest Two-masted Ship", Archaeology, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 108–111 (109) While most of the ancient evidence is iconographic, the existence of foremasts can also be deduced archaeologically from slots in foremast-feets located too close to the prow for a mainsail.Beltrame, Carlo (1996): "Archaeological Evidence of the Foremast on Ancient Sailing Ships", The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 135–139 (135)
Artemon, along with mainsail and topsail, developed into the standard rig of seagoing vessels in Roman Empire, complemented by a mizzen on the largest freighters.Lionel Casson (1995): "Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World", Johns Hopkins University Press, , pp. 239–243 The earliest recorded three-masters were the giant Syracusia, a prestige object commissioned by king Hiero II of Syracuse and devised by the polymath Archimedes around 240 BC, and other Syracusan merchant ships of the time.Lionel Casson (1995): "Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World", Johns Hopkins University Press, , p. 242, fn. 75 The imperial grain freighters travelling the routes between Alexandria and Rome also included three-masted vessels. A mosaic in Ostia Antica (c. 200 AD) depicts a freighter with a three-masted rig entering Rome's harbour.Lionel Casson (1995): "Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World", Johns Hopkins University Press, , pp. XXIV, picture 145 Special craft could carry many more masts: Theophrastus ( Hist. Plant. 5.8.2) records how the Ancient Rome imported timber by way of a huge Timber rafting propelled by as many as fifty masts and sails.Lionel Casson (1995): "Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World", Johns Hopkins University Press, , p. 4, fn. 2
Throughout antiquity, both foresail and mizzen remained secondary in terms of canvas size, although large enough to require full running rigging. In late antiquity, the foremast lost most of its tilt, standing nearly upright on some ships.
By the onset of the Early Middle Ages, rigging had undergone a fundamental transformation in Mediterranean navigation: the lateen which had long evolved on smaller Greco-Roman craft replaced the square rig, the chief sail type of the ancients, that practically disappeared from the record until the 14th century (while it remained dominant in northern Europe).Lionel Casson (1995): "Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World", Johns Hopkins University Press, , pp. 243–245Pryor, John H.; Jeffreys, Elizabeth M. (2006): "The Age of the ΔΡΟΜΩΝ. The Byzantine Navy ca. 500–1204", The Medieval Mediterranean. Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1500, Vol. 62, Brill Academic Publishers, , pp. 153–161 The dromon, the lateen-rigged and oared bireme of the Byzantine navy, almost certainly had two masts, a larger foremast and one midships. Their length has been estimated at 12 m and 8 m respectively, somewhat smaller than the Sicilian war galleys of the time.Pryor, John H.; Jeffreys, Elizabeth M. (2006): "The Age of the ΔΡΟΜΩΝ. The Byzantine Navy ca. 500–1204", The Medieval Mediterranean. Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1500, Vol. 62, Brill Academic Publishers, , pp. 238f., 244
Multiple-masted sailing ships were reintroduced into the Mediterranean Sea by the Late Middle Ages. Large vessels were coming more and more into use and the need for additional masts to control these ships adequately grew with the increase in tonnage. Unlike in antiquity, the mizzen-mast was adopted on medieval two-masters earlier than the foremast, a process which can be traced back by pictorial evidence from Venice and Barcelona to the mid-14th century. To balance out the sail plan the next obvious step was to add a mast fore of the main-mast, which first appears in a Catalonia ink drawing from 1409. With the three-masted ship established, propelled by square rig and lateen, and guided by the pintle-and-gudgeon rudder, all advanced ship design technology necessary for the great transoceanic voyages was in place by the beginning of the 15th century.Mott, Lawrence V. (1994): "A Three-masted Ship Depiction from 1409", The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 39–40
The first hollow mast was fitted on the American sloop Maria in 1845, long and built of staves bound with iron hoops like a barrel. Other hollow masts were made from two tapered timbers hollowed and glued together. Nearly a century later, the simple box form of mast was arrived at.
In the 1930s aluminum masts were introduced on large . An aluminum mast has considerable advantages over a wooden one: it is lighter and slimmer than a wooden one of the same strength, is impervious to rot, and can be produced as a single extruded length. During the 1960s wood was eclipsed by aluminum. Aluminum alloys, generally 6000 series, are commonly utilised.Beck, R., et al. "SAILING YACHT DESIGN." (2009).
Recently some sailing yachts (particularly home-built yachts) have begun to use steel masts. Whilst somewhat heavier than aluminum, steel has its own set of advantages. It is significantly cheaper, and a steel mast of an equivalent strength can be smaller in diameter than an aluminum mast, allowing less turbulence and a better airflow onto the sail.
From the mid-1990s racing yachts introduced the use of carbon fibre and other composite materials to construct masts with even better strength-to-weight ratios. Carbon fibre masts could also be constructed with more precisely engineered aerodynamic profiles.
Modern masts form the leading edge of a sail's airfoil and tend to have a teardrop-shaped cross-section. On smaller racing yachts and catamarans, the mast rotates to the optimum angle for the sail's airfoil. If the mast has a long, thin cross-section and makes up a significant area of the airfoil, it is called a wing-mast; boats using these have a smaller sail area to compensate for the larger mast area. There are many manufacturers of modern masts for sailing yachts of all sizes, a few notable companies are Hall Spars, Offshore Spars, and Southern Spars.
After the end of the age of sail, warships retained masts, initially as observation posts and to observe fall of shot, also holding fire control equipment such as rangefinders, and later as a mounting point for radar and telecommunication antennas, which need to be mounted high up to increase range. Simple pole, Lattice mast, and have been used—also, on some past Japanese warships, complex .
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