These include sloops, schooners, brigs and brigantines, barkentines, and unpowered consort-barges.
Sloops are vessels with single masts containing a gaff mainsail and headsails.
They were some of the earliest vessels on the Great Lakes, but were not used extensively for commercial purposes. Schooners were initially two-masted vessels that had one or two square sails on the foremast and a gaff topsail on the main mast. Later schooners had three and even four masts. Schooners were an early vessel type on the Great Lakes and soon became the most popular vessel type, a popularity that was to last throughout the age of commercial sailing on the Great Lakes. They could use a longer and narrower hull than a sloop and were thus faster yet had a good cargo capacity.