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The Mayflower was a typical English merchant ship of the early 17th century, square-rigged and beak-bowed with high, castle-like structures fore and aft that served to protect the ship’s crew and the main deck from the elements. Her stern carried a 30-foot high, square aft-castle which made the ship extremely difficult to sail against the wind and unable to sail well against the North Atlantic’s prevailing westerlies.
