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What’s the Deal with Ketches and Yawls?

While schooners are still easy to spot in the 21st century (here in midcoast Maine, that’s due in large part to the Windjammer passenger trade), ketches and yawls are more uncommon these days. For the puzzled layperson, each of these rigs feature a smaller mizzen mast stepped aft of the mainmast. On a ketch, the mizzen stands forward of the rudder post (the vertical shaft connecting the rudder to the tiller or wheel); on a yawl, it’s aft of the rudder post, smaller, and closer to the stern.

Before the widespread use of modern gear to automate tasks and increase efficiency (e.g., self-steering gear, roller furling, and slab reefing), split rigs—such as ketches and yawls, where the sail plan is divided between two masts (along with a headsail)—were widely respected as smart choices for single-handed, rough weather, or offshore sailing. One of the obvious advantages is that multiple sails give numerous options for responding to weather conditions, and are a lot easier to hoist, reef, and furl than larger ones.

Because the total sail area is divided between two masts, the masts can be shorter. Shorter masts also let you pass under bridges that a comparable sloop might have trouble with.

The far-aft position of the mizzenmast on a yawl gives it leverage, allowing it to balance well against a headsail when the mainsail is reefed or completely furled. As many sailors know, a yawl’s mizzen can be rigged for self-steering: set it at a desired wind angle, and if the boat wanders off course, the mizzen catches the wind and pushes the stern back to where it should be. This intrinsic feature frees up the skipper for other tasks on the boat, a necessity for single-handing. Furthermore, flying a mizzen staysail on a yawl when reaching or running downwind generates extra power.

Sheeting in the mizzen on either a ketch or a yawl helps in anchoring or picking up a mooring in that the sail will keep the boat reliably headed into the wind. Such weathercocking prevents the boat from sailing when you don’t want it to.

Adherents love the classic aesthetics of some older designs, and appreciate the handling, even if these boats aren’t as speedy as modern sloops. For some, getting there quickly is less important than getting there in style.

Spinnaker bellying, Alan Bemis’s 43’ Fisher's Island 31 sloop Cirrus (which Joel White refitted as a yawl while still an MIT undergrad) contends fiercely in a race he organized in 1980. The fog was too thick in Jericho Bay that day so the course was moved to where it was clear in Eggemoggin Reach.ere it was clear in Eggemoggin Reach.
The George Owen-designed, 11-ton 40' yawl Hobnob hosts a festive crew at the Classic Yacht Regatta at Newport, Rhode Island, in September of 1980. She was built by George F. Lawley & Son in Neponset, Massachusetts, in 1927.
The ketch Adventuress, making decent headway with her genoa, skims by the schooner Nathaniel Bowditch in the Classic Yacht Regatta, Newport, Rhode Island, September 1980.
The 36' 2" ketch Alisande sails with a launch day crowd aboard off Brooklin, Maine, where she built by Brooklin Boat Yard in 1981. Her basic design came from William Hand and was detailed by Joel White.
Alan Bemis sailing his Fishers Island 31 yawl Cirrus single-handedly, "helping celebrate the trial sail of the just-launched Alisande [in the distance] built by Brooklin Boat Yard. He later sailed up astern so I could climb aboard and take photos of Alisande."
Anne and Maynard Bray delivering the Concordia yawl Loon to Camden from Brooklin, Maine. The 39' 10" Loon was designed by Concordia Co. and built in 1956 by Abeking & Rasmussen in Lemwerder, Germany. (photo by Nat Bray)
Brooklin Boat Yard painter Raymond Eaton tends to the brightwork aboard the ketch Nasket II, kept company by Steve and Laurie White's dog Woody. The 36’ ketch Nasket II was designed by S.S. Crocker Jr. built in 1971 by Brooklin Boat Yard in Brooklin, Maine.
Crews aboard the ketch Nasket II and the cutter Northern Crown enjoy sailing together during a three-boat run from Camden to Brooklin on a breezy northwesterly day; the photo was taken from Aida, the third one.
The yawl Desperate Lark under sail somewhere off the Maine coast. The 48' 10" Desperate Lark was designed by N.G. Herreshoff and built in 1903 by Herreshoff Mfg. Co.in Bristol, Rhode Island, as one of a class of gaff-rigged sloops.
Bray spotted this double-ended, ketch-rigged cruising sharpie near Manteo, North Carolina. He’d travelled there in late 1983 to look in on the construction of Elizabeth II, an historic replica.
Bray sailed with owner Dan Carter aboard his 29' ketch Quiet Tune on a warm February day off Newport Beach, California. She was designed by L. Francis Herreshoff and built in 1945 by Hodgdon Brothers in East Boothbay, Maine.
The 37' yawl Rogue, seen here under sail off Nassau in the Bahamas, was built in 1953 by Seth Persson in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, to the 1914 Newport-29 design by N.G. Herreshoff.
Another view of the yawl Rogue under full sail in a stiff breeze in the Bahamas.
Ann and Bill Patterson leverage a vigorous breeze with their mizzen staysail flying on their 43' yawl Faraway. She was designed by Sparkman & Stephens and built by Tore Holm in 1957 in Gamleby, Sweden. The boat, renamed Aquila, now sails from Brooklin.
The wind must be up on this summer afternoon in Perry Creek, south of the Fox Island Thoroughfare between North Haven and Vinalhaven, Maine. An unidentified crew sails the 28’ Rozinante ketch Arete with her main reefed, jib hoisted, and the mizzen still lashed to the boom. Arete was designed by L. Francis Herreshoff and built in 1970 at Smith & Rhuland in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
A young Nat Bray (son of the photographer) and his mother Anne relax aboard the family boat, the 33’ centerboard yawl Aida. She was designed by N. G. Herreshoff and built in 1926 by Herreshoff Mfg. Co. in Bristol, Rhode Island. The location is in Cozy Harbor in Southport, Maine, where the boat was then moored.
On a blustery summer day, the Concordia Yawl Safari plunges along through Eggemoggin Reach near Deer Isle, Maine. The 39’10" Safari was designed by Concordia Company, and built by Abeking & Rasmussen in Lemwerder, Germany in 1955.
The owner of this unidentified ketch-rigged sharpie has "winged out" the mizzen and main on opposite sides, trying to catch more wind on a nearly-calm afternoon near St. Michael’s, Maryland.