Fig. 41.
A yawl’s mizzen is always a very small sail, and in a large majority of yachts of this rig it appears ridiculously small, and can have only an inappreciable effect on the vessel.
But in a ketch ([Fig. 42]), which differs from a yawl in having a still smaller mainsail and shorter boom, with a mizzen mast stepped further inboard, the mizzen is a much larger and more serviceable sail.
Fig. 42.
For real cruising on broad seas in all sorts of weather the ketch is the best of all fore-and-aft rigs. It is the rig of many of our coasters, and of nearly all of our deep sea fishing boats. A ninety-ton ketch-rigged fishing smack, such as one may see hundreds of, any day, tossing about on the steep seas of the Dogger Bank, is as fine a sea boat as any sailor’s heart can desire.
No bumpkin is needed for a ketch’s mizzen sheet, as the mast is so far inboard; the sheet works on a horse on the taffrail or merely through a block bolted into the deck as far aft as possible.