The patache* was another south European vessel now practically extinct. Baugean said in the year 1826 that the type was then dying out. It was a close relation of the vessel we would today call a brigantine, and belonged to that family of two-masted craft combining the square and the fore and aft rigs whose ancestry we have indicated in the articles dealing with the buss, the brig, and the snow. The foremast consisted of the conventional three sections, of lower mast, topmast, and top gallant each crossed with square yards. The mainmast was a single pole without topmast, supported by four shrouds on a side without ratlines as there was little occasion for going aloft on this spar. It bore a fore and aft gaff mainsail hooped to the mast, without a boom. This sail was hoisted and lowered by halyards and had no brails. The braces of the fore yard and topsail led to the foremast of the main shrouds, while the topgallant braces led to the mainmast head. The bowsprit carried the customary jib, while of the two stays starting from the mainmast head, one led to the knight-head and the other to the fore topmast head. Liberal staysails were carried on these stays.
The hull was cumbersome and heavy, terminating in a rounded stern pierced with small cabin windows.
These vessels, notoriously slow sailers, were commonly employed in the coasting trade, more particularly in "le grand cabotage," a rather vague term employed by the French to signify ocean voyages made without losing sight of the coasts of France, Spain, Holland, Portugal, and England, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Channel. In the Mediterranean the term had a slightly different meaning and applied to voyages which did not pass beyond the Strait.
It was used in comparison with "le petit cabotage." This term signified the carrying of cargoes in small boats from port to port without going out of the country of their origin, and always within a limited district.
