Ketch rigs

[Carling]

For sailing to handed, what is the consensus on Ketch rigs?

I believe that the smaller individual sail areas make work a little lighter, but the extra work involved with a second mast has to be considered.

Does anyone have any experience?

 

[michael_w]

IMHO Ketch rig is a real PIA.

Poor upwind, not very good on a dead run, can reach a bit provided the mizzen doesn't give you too much weather helm. Another sail coat to handle. If aft cockpit the rain and spray drips neatly on the helmsman. The idea that the boat will sail well under mizzen and genoa is baloney in my experience.

Good points: Looks pretty, mizzen is a handy place to put the radar. mizzen staysail can help. Err, that's it.

Zips up flame proof suit.

 

[ccscott49]

Pretty much outdated now, with modern materials, modern two speed winches etc. But I like mine.
In heavy weather a staysail and mizzen "jib and jigger" works very well, also mizzen up at anchor does keep the boat facing to wind better and keeps a constant "tug" on the anchor ensuring it stays well buried.
Also handy for a cockpit cover at anchor and somewhere to put a halyard for the passerelle when in meddy type ports and using for lifting dinghy/outboard and other useful stuff.
For a couple sailing nowadays a good well balanced and thought out cutter rig, does very nicely though.

 

[KellysEye]

Our boat is a ketch. Drawbacks are relatively not good upwind (drag from mizzen) and relatively not good dead downwind even with a kite (main mast is smaller than similar size sloop so kite area less). However, ketches are reaching machines. If you have a mizzen staysail you will thrash any similar size/weight boat if you are off the wind.

Contrary to one comment, our boat is perfectly balanced with mizzen and genoa, if the boat doesn't balance it's a rig design problem.

We chose a ketch for two main reasons:
- split sail plan allows Jane to handle all the sails. I take the point about big winches and modern sail handling techniques but most women still don't have the required strength.

- we wanted to go ocean sailing, most of which is reaching and thus perfect for a ketch. I doubt we've spent more than a couple of days going upwind and sailing just off the wind is quicker than dead downwind.

There are other small benefits like being able to use the mizzen to heave to. Certainly there is a bit more work with three sails, but they are not such hard work as two.

Bottom line is it depends what sort of sailing you want to do. Long distance trade wind sailing, ketch is fine. Weekend cruising or round the cans, I wouldn't bother. Oh, and yes they are much prettier than sloops but that shouldn't influence the decision...much

 

[Guest]

You say sailing 2 handed.

In that case, if it is longer than day sailing, the boat has to be able to be sailed by both crew members alone.

A ketch allows a larger, than would be possible, hull to be sailed without sleep deprivation.

Being able to fly the mizzen stay sail during the night, without the main, means that there is no operation that takes 2 people, or requires leaving the cockpit, and the noise levels for the sleeping crew are reduced.

As for going to windward that is down to the crew, sails and hull more than the rig. Most of the rubbish said about ketches must be based on some poorly design boats.

 

[ironmaiden]

(As for going to windward that is down to the crew, sails and hull more than the rig. Most of the rubbish said about ketches must be based on some poorly design boats. )

Dont think you thought that one through.... windward performance is all down to the rig ...a ketch will not point as high as a modern sloop or cutter ... if it's not down to the rig why is it that square riggers can hardly point high into the wind ...hence they followed the trade winds which were mainly on the stern.

and I as a woman with the aid of modern gear could handle a 45 foot sloop, albeit hard work and not recomenderd for long periods of time.
Ketch rig is very pretty ...but alas very old.

 

[DaiB]

We have had a ketch rig on a 39ft now for 10 years after having a sloop rig for 12 years on a 32 ft.
I like the ketch rig but there are some things not so good, e.g. the extra mast and rigging costs.
However we quite often sail with just genny and mizzen and as we are cruising we don't worry that it isn't pointing up that extra bit, under this sail plan she is well balanced and easy to handle by my wife alone. My wife is not that strong and has problems with handling the main by herself. with just genny and mizzen I can sleep and let her handle it all. On a trip to the Azores we normally dropped the main for the night and chugged along under the mizzen and genny. This way it was easy to handle in the dark and by rolling up the genny as needed this sail plan was good for up to 30 knots wind speed.
I reckon for our sort of laid back cruising it's hard to beat having the sailplan split up into smaller sails.
Going downwind, even when we had a sloop we generally just used the genny and didn,t bother with boomed out main and poles etc.
So if you want to zoom around, get the last degree to windward and last bit of speed then yes go sloop rig. If you want an easy handle sail plan with lots of options then try a ketch.

 

[Guest]

Yes, I thought it through and so have many before me.

Quote about Steve Dashew old boat:
"Even the 78-foot Beowulf can be handled by a couple"

I agree a plank and a hanky can not go to windward well, but a ketch and a sloop are both fore-aft rigged boats.

As for practical experience of beating sloops to windward I have both light airs and 8 days of 15-25knot windward passages where the ease of the ketch rig allowed us to hold up more useful sail than the sloops, up 1.5 times our water length, and still beat them tack for tack. (Tacks were up to 12 hour legs). We also both slept well.

Hull shape is very important for going to windward. High top sides and coach roof etc are a significant disadvantage in high winds and short seas.

It was also reassuring to find that the percentage of ketches seem to increase in the harder parts of the world oceans. So I am not alone in my thinking.

 

[KellysEye]

I don't wholly agree about windward performance, most times I've seen ketches and sloops sailing together the sloops are outpointing the ketches. But as somebody said, we're not in a hurry.

I agree about seeing more (than usual) ketches in the harder parts of the world - we make it 30 to 35% of boats are ketches and up to 50% in some places. I think the reason is that ketches tend to be solidly built and thus make good long distance cruising boats, there's no economic sense in putting two (expensive) masts on the modern lightly built (cheap) hull.

As an aside, in the harder places the percentage of metal boats rockets up to much the same as above. In can even reach 90%.

Also it was mentioned that the rig is old. I don't think it is old or old fashioned, any more than a cutter is. It's just that most people want weekend caravans so hardly any ketches are built now. Then you get exceptions like the Sundeer.

 

[SeaVenture]

We'd always sailed sloops before buying Sea Venture, a ketch. Yes, she cost more to rerig, but when her main boom broke (a faulty repair job at the Mexican boatyard) in the middle of the Sea of Cortez, we sailed with the mizzen and yankee, then handily hove to overnight when we couldn't make La Paz before nightfall. Especially handy when the storm came up.

I'm no young thing, so I like the smaller sail areas on our large, comfortable boat. I know what some say about outrunning a storm, but I doubt most boats could do it, and I'd rather a boat that heaves to easily with jib and jigger. As cruisers, we don't need to be in a hurry, and at my age, I'm all about comfort, with beauty thrown in (though both standards vary according to the individual).

 

[KellysEye]

Well I'm obviously much younger than you ;-) but we also sailed sloops, for twenty two years, before we decided to go cruising. In many ways it was because we had sailed sloops that we chose a ketch. We had learned how two sails give problems, the lack of quality of build on most sloops or very serious bucks for good quality. If we hadn't bought a ketch it would have been a proper cutter (mast further back) not the excuse for a cutter i.e. an inner stay on a sloop.

Your point about heaving to is spot on.

I also agree with DaiB about using the main. Reefing a main is a serious pain, dropping it is easy.We drop the main if the apparent wind reaches 25 knots (reaching) or at night if we think the wind will pick up. Then we just furl the genoa as the wind builds. It has to be really honking before we reef the mizzen and because it's a relatively small sail it's easy.

 

[Salty John]

I've had both. I wouldn't include or exclude a boat from a short list specifically because it was a ketch/sloop.
With modern materials and sail handling systems it's quite possible to short hand a big sloop. The ketch rig has added complications, which I don't like, and a few advantages - somewhere to mount the wind generator; a means of hoisting the dinghy; support for a cockpit awning. On a very big boat the split rig advantage would come into it's own. My ketch carried its mizzen boom very high to avoid hitting heads in the cockpit and this meant some difficulty in handling the mizzen - reefing, furling.
From a sailing point of view I think, for cruisers, the pros and cons are marginal. I think a cutter headed boat, either ketch or sloop, would be higher up the priority table.
Cost of the extra sails and running and standing rigging is important to many.

 

[demonboy]

I've sailed a few boats and one had a ketch rig and it was a pain in the ass. Now we own a ketch.

It all depends on the system/rig you have. Both the one I sailed and the one we own are in-mast but the Hood system on ours is a joy. The other boat was awful and I suspect the previous posters who immediately dismiss ketches probably had bad experiences like the one I had.

If you find your 'perfect' boat and it has a ketch rig, don't write it off. Ketches do have their advantages (as mentioned above) and Liz and I are very happy with the rig (ours is cutter). It is well balanced, we sail very close to the wind without hassle, the mizzen is a joy to handle and really balances our boat. Sailing without touching the helm is a boon, especially when there's just two of you, like us. When it gets really hairy we sail on the inner and mizzen alone, which far easier to manage than some fully-battened sloops I've been on. I'm not taking sides though, there are pros and cons to any rig. I'm just a happy bunny with a ketch.

 

[Abigail]

Roaring Girl is a ketch and I would (of course) agree that they're a good thing. Specifically, for two women it is good to have more easily handled sails. The fully-battened main would be a real pig on a full sloop mast. We do not have electric winches, but even if we did, getting the sail down can be as much an issue as getting it up in some conditions.

We sail on genoa and mizzen quite a bit, as well as on reduced main, full mizzen and reduced genoa in other conditions. Balancing the baot does present challenges at times, and even after four years and reaching southern france the long way, we are still learning.

We had a cutter and/or ketch on our starting list - ie never a pure sloop. Ideally we would ahve liked a cutter-rigged ketch but it was beyond our price range. A core question is the affordable boat at the time you are looking - and I wouldn't rule out a ketch on first principles.

Enjoy the hunt anyway!

 

[captainslarty]

Must add to the general thread that as a ketch owner (Seastream 34) I love it, I sail perfectly well to windward for my liking, and I dont really like to if I can avoid it.. downwind no worries, no difference to a sloop, just using headsails that is, on a reach, superb, ability to drop the main and sail jib n jigger (or genny or staysail and mizzen) is great. Easy to handle. I have no desire to change the rig at all. As many have said a lot is down to the designer (Ian Anderson) in our case, a dog of a boat is a dog of a boat, some ketchs are dogs some sloops are too.
So, Yes, Its super - for me - so is a pilot house - so is a skeg hung rudder and cut away fore.. horses for courses, personally wouldnt touch a modern fin woth a double length spinny pole, but again, that MY choice.
Hope yo find the ship of your dreams.