Not all "window shade" sails are of modern design. A few years back I owned a 66-foot, 32-ton steel, pilot-house schooner, designed and built by a Belgian maritime historian as a replica of a nineteenth century French fishing schooner. She was gaff-rigged and had the usual complement of for-and-aft sails, including main and foresail, main-gaff topsail and and fore-gaff topsail, flying jib and staysail, and a small main-topmast staysail called a "fisherman".

But strangely, there was in addition a square sail suspended from a yardarm on the foremast. The yard, of a length twice the beam of the vessel, was situated just slightly above the point at which the gaff met the foremast and the sail was quite large, falling nearly to the deck. The sail was furled vertically, so that it lay not against the yard, but against the mast. It was only flown (with or without the foresail) when going downwind but was emminently convenient for the reason that, having removed the gaskets, it was opened and closed like two wings of a center-mounted drape, with one halyard rigged to pull both halves of the sail head out to their respective ends of the yard, and a second halyard (or "hauldown"), hauling the heads of the sail back in against the mast.

I've not seen anything like it before or since, but my experience with square sails has been more limited than I might have liked. If anyone knows the terminology for that kind of sail and rig I'd be very curious to learn it.

Thanks for the drift in this direction, Melani. This whole topic, which arose from an objection I made during a recording session to radriano about "flaking" the cable, (an objection I now realize was entirely too dogmatic), has generated an incredible amount of information, very pleasantly imparted by a fascinating group of people. Whereas I had taken the position that there was a term of global if not cosmic correctness, it has now been made abundantly clear to me that the nautical terms "fake" and "flake" have changed from ship to ship, captain to captain, navy to navy, and even, as evidenced by quite opposit statements in successive editions of the same naval manual, from time to time. On reflection it seems, as several have said, that safety and expediency will be served as long as it is agreed what terms shall be used on a given ship at a given time, and that in this case the existance of a single "true, traditional meaning" was a figment of my fevered imagination.

Doc