Pros and Cons of cutter rigged ketches

[Abigail]

Hi - we have a centre cockpit sloop rigged ketch whiich we find works very welkl for us on long distance cruising as well as coastal. The disadvantages are the additional cost of sails, rigging etc, weight, some faffiness. Being centre cockpit avoids the drippy mizzen problem.

Down wind we tend to sail on our (sizeable) mizzen and overlapping genoa and find that works fine. If the sea is reasonably flat then we add a cruising chute. Upwind, she takes her time to get hard on the wind. It's a slow gentle process rather than a fast round and sheet in. But with a little patience she will track very reliably upwind under full sail, all sails working hard. We wer doing a good 7.5 knots in 12 knots of wind on our last uphill canter before the winter. Not fast for a racer but v fast for a fully laden liveaboard cruiser. But a sloop would undoubtedly tack faster and easier and come to a closehauled course sooner.

We do really like the breakdownable sail plan and the relative stiffness. As two women sailing, we wanted those characterstics. We looked longingly at cutter rigged ketches for even further flexibility, but found none in our price range when we were in the market.

 

[Bejasus]

the reason we bought the Hardin, was the fact that we want a relaxed cruising life aboard a sea kindly vessel, and whilst we both enjoy blatting along at 9 kts plus, it wouldn't be our choice to live that way. The cutter ketch, whilst not being the best windward performance choice, gives us a very manageable sail plan with nothing being too big to hoist and many choices, plus we always have the big assymetric for downwind sailing. The other plus, is the centre cockpit and a quality bimini which can stay up with all round visibility, and the aft cabin is great.
We are not in a rush to get anywhere and where we do go, we can in comfort.

 

[suse]

centre cockpit is good.

S x

 

[DaveNTL]

Just to add another 'pro' of a mizzen that I have found really useful is to use it as a 'wind rudder', sheeted in, if you're either anchoring under sail, or to keep the boat head to wind at anchor to stop the boat rolling - reduces a lot of strain on your ground tackle doing that too.

Apart from that its great for hanging the washing off.