Ketch or Cutter Rig

[CharlieCobra]

That's the one sail I needed for Oh Joy was a flying Yankee. I had a 150 on the forestay furler and it was a you know what to tack with the staysail stay in place. Thanks heavens for detacheable stays. The boat certainly looked sweet with six rags flying on a broad run.

[Celestialsailor]

A Ketch is easier on everything accept the pocket book when it comes time to replace rigging and sails.

[islandplanet]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

Yes, I concur with his opinion. Ketches are like VW camper vans...a perfect choice for not enough people to continue to bother making them. That has nothing to do with their inherent qualities, but the sort of people who would really make use of a ketch are few in number, and they aren't really daysailer material and require more actual seamanship than a sloop.

If you possess or can develop that knowledge, however, they are a great option for safely going around the world at a nice steady five knots.

There's actually few builders making real cruising boats of any sort. You'd be surprised at how often ketches arrive at the destinations earlier than their sloop or cutter rigged counterparts. I agree with you that they aren't exactly daysailer material. I'd much rather go out for a daysail on a friend's First 42 than our boat but on a passage I appreciate the smooth ride and better off the wind performance than many other cruising boats.

[markpierce]

The flying jib lapped the staysail just slightly, so it was easy to tack by releasing one sheet and tightening the other.

[sck5]

On our recent trip from Rock Hall to the Caribbean and back I think I could probably count the number of times we tacked on my fingers. It just wasnt necessary most of the time on the ocean passages where we tacked three times on the way down and maybe once or twice on the way back. Down in the islands I stayed put if the wind wasnt right and just sailed to the next island until I was outside the anchorage, fired up the engine for a few minutes until the hook was down. That kind of cruising makes how hard it is to tack kind of unimportant compared to things like how well the boat sails in a trade wind.

[islandplanet]

sck5,

My experience is that most of the criticism of ketches comes from people who have never made a passage on one. As you point out, the realities of cruising can be different than what the armchair cruisers perceive. Some friends of ours, who coincidentally are senior citizens, have cruised extensively in their Amel. During their Atlantic crossing they went close to a week with the balooner poled to one side, genoa to the other, and boatspeed never dropping below 7.5 knots. Aside from checking for chafe there wasn't much in the way of trimming.

[sabray]

My old ketch was cutter rigged and had a mizzen staysl. I remember sailing into Newport with every stitch flying I watched the guests on the lawn at castle hill stand up and watch as we sailed past. Lots of sail options is a plus turning heads is fun. Then i noticed a 16 meter passing me windward maybe they were looking at me. Still fun

[witchcraft]

Our vessel is both, ketch and cutter rigged forward. Lots of sail options, and with the stay and mizzen raised, we sit her where we want to deal with other sails etc..
More strings to pull than the previous sloop we owned but absolutely balances like a dream.
cheers
witchcraft

[Nicholson58]

Not much wind but here we are with kite, jib,cutter staysail, main mizzen staysail, mizzen. Its important to sail fast, look good, have a good time - pick two.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by sck5

On our recent trip from Rock Hall to the Caribbean and back I think I could probably count the number of times we tacked on my fingers. It just wasnt necessary most of the time on the ocean passages where we tacked three times on the way down and maybe once or twice on the way back. Down in the islands I stayed put if the wind wasnt right and just sailed to the next island until I was outside the anchorage, fired up the engine for a few minutes until the hook was down. That kind of cruising makes how hard it is to tack kind of unimportant compared to things like how well the boat sails in a trade wind.

Agreed. My last passage as crew, we stayed on a starboard tack for nine days. We sure changed course, mind you, but the weather systems more or less rotated around us, giving us pretty well the same apparent wind direction.

Apart from the squalls, mind you!

[s/v Jedi]

Ah, we're doing ketch pics :-)















(all Dashew yachts)

ciao!
Nick.