Page "Schooner" Paragraph 5

According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, the first vessel called a schooner was built by builder Andrew Robinson and launched in 1713 from Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Legend has it that the name was the result of a spectator exclaiming " Oh how she scoons ", scoon being similar to scon, a Scots word meaning to skip along the surface of the water.

Robinson replied, " A schooner let her be.

" According to Walter William Skeat, the term schooner comes from scoon, while the sch spelling comes from the later adoption of the Dutch and German spellings (" Schoner ").