The masts and sails of a Greenland vessel are not without their peculiarities. As it is an object of importance that a fishing-ship should be easily navigated, under common circumstances, by a boat’s crew of six or seven men, it is usual to take down royal masts, and even top-gallant masts, and sometimes to substitute a long light pole in place of a mizen top-mast; also, to adopt such sails as require the least management. Courses set in the usual way require a number of men to work them when the ship is tacked; a course, therefore, made to diminish as it descends, that is, narrowest at the foot or lower part, and extended by a boom, or yard below as well as above, and this boom fastened by a tackle fixed at its centre to the deck, swings with the yards, with little or no alteration, and is found particularly convenient. Fore-sails, on this principle, have been in use about six or seven years. In 1816, I fitted a main-sail or cross-jack, in the same way, the former of which we found of admirable utility. Boom-courses are not only convenient in tacking, but are likewise a valuable acquisition when sailing among crowded dangerous ice. As the safety of the ship depends, next to the skilfulness of the piloting officer, on a prompt management of the yards and sails, boom-courses are strikingly useful on account of the little attention they require when any alteration in the position of the sails becomes necessary; and when the ship’s head-way is required to be suddenly stopped in a situation where she cannot be luffed into the wind, boom-courses swinging simultaneously with the top-tails are backed without any annoyance from tacks or sheets, and of course assist materially in effecting the intention. Such is the advantage of this description of sails, that on one occasion, when all the rest of my crew were engaged in the capture of a whale, with the assistance of only two men, neither of them sailors, I repeatedly tacked a ship of 350 tons’ burden under three courses, top-sails and top-gallant sails, together with jib and mizen, in a strong breeze of wind. Gaf-sails between the masts, in the place of stay-sails, are likewise deservedly in much repute. To the mizen and try-sail, or gaf main-sail, that have been long in use, I have added a gaf fore-sail of similar form, besides which, my father has also adopted gaf top-sails between each mast. These sails produce an admirable effect when a ship is “on a wind,” which is the kind of sailing most required among the ice.