Is this a schooner or a ketch?

S.Y. Aquijo is promoted as the largest ketch in the world:

Inside 86m Aquijo: The largest ketch in the world (boatinternational.com)

The builders (Vitters) also refer to it as a ketch, and it appears Bill Tripp the designer does too.

It looks like a schooner to me... Southern Spars built the rig and state both masts are the same height -90m. (dunno if that means same spar length or same height above water - I presume the latter).

There doesn't seem to be consensus on various internet sources re whether a schooner _must_ have the foremast shorter than the main mast - it seems to be something open to debate?

Most people I asked (including professional mariners and schoonermen) call it a schooner.

So...
1) Is there a definitive and accepted rule that defines this as a ketch.
2) is there some advantage in calling it a ketch? maybe class rules, insurance or some other motivator?
3) Perhaps simply to call it "the largest ... in the world" - because there are schooners longer than 86m

 

3) most likely...but then again, schooners typically stay the mainmast off the fore, ketches generally don't stay the mizzen from the main. There is no triatric stay here so we won't add that complication as the mizzen has full backstays.

 

... And if you called it a schooner, it wouldn't be the biggest one in the world

 

I lived aboard a three masted schooner, as a kid. All three masts were the same size. The center mast sat on the cabin top, so it was higher than the other two, but if we decided to call the forward mast the Main Mast, perhaps it could have been a spankerred ketch.

 

My understanding is that it is a ketch because the mizzen has less sail area than the mainsail.
JS

 

That could make sense - sail area combined with mast height. Do you know the mizzen sail is smaller?

 

good point re stays, also as suggested in HJS's post - the mizzen sail area is (or maybe) smaller than the mainsail

 

huh... so it's rigged like a ketch: Aquijo - Future Fibres

But, both masts are the same size with same sail area: "Her twin carbon fibre masts reach 91m above the waterline, with matched main and mizzen. North 3Di sails of over 1,100 square metres each." A look aboard Aquijo, the world's largest ketch (yachtingworld.com)

I suppose, if I squint a little, I could imagine the designer, builder, and rigger _might_ have some authority in calling it a ketch.

 

-Will

 

"equal-masted-schooner" - a well tried appelation.
(but the thing is so ugly it doesn't matter what we call it)

 

This was a New York Pilot boat "Shooner"

In fact the famous schooner "America" carried this type of rig which is 1 wing built with 3 elements, great for 40-60 degrees.

 

Shooner America

 

The word "schooner" was later linked to the rig used by fishermen, rig that passed to the pilots boats of the port of New York thus disappearing from sight the striking rig that built 1 wing with 3 pieces.

And the kecht, to tell you the truth, I don't know what the point is beyond the Yawl.

And the rig in this thread has all the appearance of being the result of excess.

 

New York Pilot Shooner (ca. 1885)

looks like a fishermen's schooner

 

I would call this a ketch even though the mizzen is only slightly smaller than the main.

The definition of a ketch is quite exact. It has to meet two conditions. One, it must have two masts. Two, The aft mast must have a smaller sail than the foremast. There is a debateable third condition. That is that the mizzen sail must be large enough to provide a large portion of the total driving power of the rig. This third condition distinglishes it from a yawl.

A schhooner seems a bit harder to pin down. It can be discribed by the sail on the aft mast being of equal or greater size than that on the foremast, or by simply having more than two masts.