Quote Originally Posted by Hjl View Post
How is a brig different to a sloop?
To be Strictly Accurate: Technically, a "brig" can be a "sloop"; the RN had both "brig-sloops" (two-masted designs, as described by Dobbs), and "ship-sloops" (three-masted units).

Best-known of the brig-sloops was the _Cruizer_-class: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruizer-class_brig-sloop .

For those of us here in the Pacific Northwest, this class of ship-sloop is significant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormor...ass_ship-sloop -- HMS _Racoon_ [sic] specifically.

Ship-sloops were IDed by the rig of the aft-most mast (the mizzen); a sloop had a fore-and-aft rig, while a corvette had a square rig.