The identifying features of a xebec are a pronounced overhanging bow and stern and a build similar to a galley. Early xebecs had two masts; later ones three. A polacre-xebec carried a square rig on the foremast, lateen sails on the other masts, a bowsprit, and two headsails. A xebec fitted solely with lateen sails was called a felucca, a term shared with one or two-masted lateen-rigged vessels without the overhang or galley build characteristic of a xebec. There were also fully square-rigged xebecs called xebec-frigates.
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