Why a Yawl or Ketch instead of a sloop

Experience Counts

Hardy Welcome BeauVroyk,
Sorry for you rude introduction to the forums. Most of us really do appreciate contributions from experienced seaman.

 

I agree with much of this... but, I was address a somewhat different question

I was attempting to respond to the original post with a view towards what sorts of rigs would be most easily sailed off shore. I agree with much of what you've said and don't with some of it.

First, I went off shore with a Ketch that wasn't a particularly good one, with respect to the size of its mizzen, because all the rest of it was a wonderful boat. The ketch was Saga, now called Sequoia, designed by Tom Wyle and she's been around the world twice, to NZ and back once, to Hawaii and back at least 5 times, so she's clearly a fine sea boat. However, after about 18 years her new owner simply took the mizzen down. The boat became a ketch because her original owner loved the idea of a ketch and didn't really understand some of the negatives.

Second, I do understand that with a split rig the best choice for performance is to put the big mast in the front. However, this is usually because you get bigger headsails and a bigger chute. The point is you get better performance. With roller furling on the headsail there isn't as bit a problem, but the reason for going with a schooner in the days of Banks fishing was that the head sails, which were hard to handle when on a bowsprit and also more difficult to make large prior to dacron, would be smaller. Finally, a schooner will typically sail easily and comfortable on only her foresail. This was the original intent for the Banks schooners because they were left with the cook and the boy aboard while everyone else went fishing. The fore is a much easier sail to putter around with slowly than any single, or even double, sails on a ketch or yawl. We used to use the staysail and mizzen on Saga, but it still required someone to tack the staysail, it wasn't self tacking.

Third, I have sailed aboard maxi ketches, really big ones including NZ Endeavor and those rigs exist, primarily, because of some oddity in the race rules. Dalton and Blake would be happy to tell you that the Whitbread race had a hole in the rule big enough to drive a maxi ketch through, which they did. Once the rule's hole was filled all the ketches disappeared and there were nothing but sloops. I completely agree, that a split rig is far easier to sail, I'll come to the comment about age in a second, but for max performance the losses that are created by the mizzen's sail area being in close proximity to the main are much greater than any improvement in stability from having the center of effort of the rig lower down. It is also true that both hard on the wind and dead down wind there is almost no way to get one set of sails out of the wind of the other. As a result, people have really given up on high performance split rigs unless the rule has a hole in it. For a given sail area, one mast clearly wins until you reach the some limit based on sail size. The limit might be induced by the physical abilities of the sailors, the strength of the materials used, or the height of a bridge you wish to pass under (the reason that Maltese Falcon has three masts rather than two, I've heard. She just barely makes it under the bridge that spans the Panama canal.)

Finally, with respect to my comment about age. I'm 57 and find that I'm simply not as strong as I was at 20. Sure, this will vary entirely based upon the person and their physical conditioning. The size sail one can handle is also a function of the mechanical equipment aboard. On Saga we had powered winches, so there wasn't a problem hoisting a main with a luff length of 93' or hauling in a 160% genoa with a foot length of over 35'. I just pressed a button and the winch did all the work. But, when things break, and they always do, there is a real difference between a 20 year old and a 50 year old stripping a 250 pound mainsail off of the boom. When everything's working, skill can make up for age, but when all sorts of things go wrong you may find yourself trying to lift a headsail, reef a main who's automatic reefing is broken or lots of other things that require unplanned activities. My comment about 50 was because I'm well past it and was my personal opinion. It was also because a number of my friends, who can now afford it, are buying boats based upon the "Your Age Plus 20" rule, meaning take your age and add 20 then buy a boat that length. To see these guys trying to get the chute out of the fore hatch without using a halyard to lift it is pretty funny.

I don't think I have any pictures of Salee, the big Alden. She was like a large version of the early gaff headed Malabars. She was launched in 1926 in Boothbay, I was told, but I've never been able to find a record of her. She died in Hawaii as a charter boat in the '70s, I swear the owners ran her up on a reef to get the insurance money. She was owned by Dr. Beecham, the credit dentist in LA when I was her skipper and I still have wonderful memories of her on a broad reach headed for Mexico. I've no idea why she was rigged as a gaffer - in '26 it would have been pure nostalgia - but she was lovely. Saga, now Sequoia is on her way around the world again, just left as a sloop.

BV

 

I agree - much of what I said was opinion, I'm happy to back it up.

I think you'd find that a cat rigged sloop, which may be about the most efficient rig if there weren't any racing rules, is by far the easiest boat to sail. Even easier than the cat ketch. But, the reason you go to a ketch is that the mainsail, like that on the WyleCat sloops, gets pretty darned big in even a 35 foot boat. It's hard to handle a boom that's 40' long, like the one that Tom has on the 45' cat boat.

The reason that the mizzen has trouble is exactly the same reason that people don't sail directly behind their competitors during a sailboat race, the wind is disturbed and less powerful and as a result the boat goes slower. The Mizzen spends its entire life living in the bad air of the Main, unless you are far enough off the wind that the high pressure and direction flow change caused by the main has moved to pass forward of the mizzen mast. When a ketch or yawl is reaching, and I don't know the exact angle of the apparent wind because it depends upon how far apart the two masts are, eventually the bad air from the main will pass ahead of the mizzen mast and not disturb the sail. But, this is fairly far off the wind. The high pressure zone on the windward side of the leech the main extends for quite a distance. For evidence of this, consider what happens when someone "lee bows" a competitor. You sail directly to leeward and ahead of another boat. Within minutes the windward boat slows down, and this is with the windward boat's sails a long way to windward, as well as aft, of the leeward boat. The poor mizzen mast is not only close behind, but it is directly in the bad air of the main. Effectively the main is "lee bowing" the mizzen all the time.

One final point on this, if a slot, like the one between the jib and main or between the main and mizzen was really fast, wouldn't we still have "slots" on airplanes or be flying bi-planes? Sure, there's a slot in the wing when we want massive extra lift, we open up the flaps. But, there is also tremendous turbulence from those slots. The best wings and sails will always be a single wing or sail - it's why birds don't fly bi-plane like wings - that's a joke. (albeit a bad one.)

Finally, not everything I say is right and certainly not just because I (or anyone) says it. I'd be the first to admit it. You also should ignore the level of experience anyone has either at sea or in a forum and judge their comments on the merits. There are plenty of reasons for split rigs, good ones, it's just that performance isn't one of them. My favorite reason for a split rig, and the reason I adore schooners, is that they are the most beautiful boats I've ever seen, followed closely but a three headsail galf headed cutter. (Now there's a high performance boat!)

 

Thanks - no problem with the welcome - the good thing about a forum is that no one can throw a bottle. No harm done and certainly no real offense taken.

 

Paul,

Thanks - glad to meet you - no apology needed here.

We could have the ketch vs schooner debate for years, and I think we're probably more in agreement than you realize on a number of your points. I was probably a bit to declarative of my opinions, it happens. The reason I like the schooner is simply smaller headsails and a fore that will let her sail to a mooring or around an anchorage without anyone touching anything other than the helm. My ketch required me to tack the inner staysail to get her around under short canvas. I have to admit, the main reason I like schooners is the way they look.

With respect to the 500 sq ft vs 300, I think this is really a choice of how much you're willing to depend upon automatic or semi-automatic equipment, like winches and roller furling. If I had a big schooner with a bowsprit today, I'd have rollers on the headsails, and I'd set an asymmetrical chute on one of those Vendi rollers that they use for their A-Sails. But, then I'd be taking a risk and have a sail that was hard to deal with when something like the roller broke. I've actually started going back to hanks, BTW, even on racing boats that have used foils for decades, simply because the extra drag of the hank is more than made up for by the ability to keep the headsail on the foredeck during a change or a down wind leg with the chute up. Even with a big crew the luff grove sails do tend to fly around and go shrimping sometimes.

Finally, with respect to the bad boat vs good boat comment, I was really responding to the earlier post about the French cruising sloops having trouble while the well designed split rig sailed away. The point was that a badly designed sloop will perform badly and a well designed boat wont. I should have said it more clearly perhaps, but it has nothing to do with the rig, it's the boat. There are lots of good boats that are badly rigged and sailed. But, if you have a bad boat, and here I'd include a lot of the charter boats that roll their rudders out of the water at 35 degrees of heel, you're going to have trouble. There are Hunter's here on SF Bay that tack on every puff. Are they "bad boats"? I would say yes. Can you sail them without them tacking on every big puff - yes, but it's hard. You end up with the main triple reefed and 1/2 the jib rolled up. A J-120 with all her plain sail up will say by in the same conditions not rounding up at all. I'd say the J-120 is a pretty good boat (not perfect) and the Hunter of the same length is a pretty bad boat because of the stability problems.

 

Beau,

I really can't argue with anything you said in your answer to me. When performance on restricted sail area is the issue, the fewer sails the better. The old "slot" babel and diagrams that used to be in all the books has mostly bitten the dust. None of the cat ketches I am concerned with are handicapped by sail area and no cruising boat should be. They also have sprit booms for reduced sheet loads and no vangs required. Handling these cat ketches in tight quarters is far better than any other rig I have ever sailed. They can be driven any direction but directly upwind, including directly downwind under control when the occasion calls for it. Too bad that many, if not most, sailboats on the market are so affected by racing rules, or perhaps the perceptions of the public because of these rules.

At 57, you are just a lad from my perch on 77 years with health issues. The issue of ease of handling is all important to those of us in the over the hill gang. The best jib headsail is no sail at all. As you say, there are many reasons for choosing a particular rig. I still race sloops (other people's boats) regularly), but all I do is steer and leave the grunting to younger crew.

 

BeauVrolyk, I suspect you're correct in that we agree on much more then we don't. I usually try to avoid the "conceptions" debates, because you can't knock someone of a schooner soap box if it's their fir ball of the day.

You sound a lot like a number of aging sailors (myself included) that have reverted back to a "kinder, gentler" time when headsails were hanked and hydraulic winches didn't crap the bed in force 5 and building, because we didn't have them.

I've had too many jams in rollers or malfunctions in equipment and seemingly always at the worst time, to ever consider putting drum on a sprit again. Besides they're usually a poorly setting thing and massive bundles of drag rolled up.

I've found more often then not, you can make a poorly performing boat better with adjustment, setup, sailing technique of course and if necessary some modifications, regardless of rig or hull type.

Again welcome aboard.

 

Absolutely; I mentioned the maxi ketches to illustrate that ketches can be both weatherly and fast when properly designed. Too much observation of poor designs (like Brians Morgan 41) doesn't help.

In my first post I was trying to say that twin masts were not a very good option on boats under 40-45 feet.

However the lift to drag ratio upwind will always favor the minimum number of sails, currently that is the sloop for larger boats. Once you get out of the racing arena it's a different ballgame anyway and what appear huge differences in a racer become insignificant on a passagemaker.

 

Time spent "on the wind"

Mike, a number of years ago I went through the log book of my trip through the S. Pacific to New Zealand and back. In 174 days at sea over 5 years the ketch Saga spent about 10 days actually on the wind. While there were certainly times when it would be good to go up wind better, taking a boat to sea that is hard to sail just to optimize those 10 days would be stupid.

During the same cruise I spent about 34 days with the chute up, where I didn't use the mizzen because it didn't do anything but slow me down. I was sailing about 160 to 170 degrees apparent wind.

The conclusion I have to come to for a cruising boat is that one should optimize reaching so long as the boat isn't un-safe. Lee shores are still dangerous.

Beau

 

Tom,

I went sailing in Newport Beach, CA, on a Harbor 20. Everything is self tacking and the racing rules require that one never leave the cockpit. The perfect beer can racing boat. While it's way too small to take across an ocean, the basic idea isn't bad. The self tacking jib with its own boom is a nice touch and makes roller furling really work right when reefed. (Well, it works better, still not perfect.)

Beau

 

Paul,

Yes, when I sold the big cruising boat I bough an old IOD, 33' sloop with no engine two winches with nothing to turn them by my arms. Since then, I haven't had hydro oil in the bilge, the stink of fuel, and all I have to do is be sure to keep an eye on the tide so I don't get washed out of the bay in my motorless sloop. Mechanical equipment has allowed us to sail boats that are far too large to sail when those devices break down. Because I was hauling a family with me to New Zealand, I took a big boat and a lot of tools. Now that I'm on my own, I'm back to simple simple simple.

Your point about getting boat to balance, or at least improve, by proper trim and adjustment is a very good one. Using my IOD as an example again, these boats have long booms and on a beam reach are a handful in the strong winds of SF Bay. They were set up for windward leeward racing where the big main doesn't get the boat out of balance. As a result, I'm probably going to be the first person around here to put a reef on the boat. It's because the boat is substantially faster reaching with a reef in and the chute up, and the rudder not being dragged through the water.

Best,

Beau

 

On a decent performing multihull (not cattle boat) that 34 days of 160-170 apparent wind might have been improved upon as a reaching situation, and the ketch's mizzen might have been more useful.

That 10 out of 174 days upwind are exactly why I perfer a split rig over a sloop for cruising.

 

Short, Fat, Long Keels. Low AR

The Morgan was an interesting example for me very early in my career. Obviously that vessel was too short for a ketch rig, and the mast were too close together to get anything out of the mizzen. That vessel also had a short fat keel that did not resist leeway very well at all, and the mainsail emphasized it to extreme.

I often think back to this combination when I see this short long fixed keels on catamarans...not one of my favorites

 

Brian,

Why DO people put "keels" on multihulls? I am not a multihull sailor, other that Tornados in my youth, and I was under the impression that you wanted absolute minimum weight in a multihull, even a cruising one. I can't imagine that the weight of a keel actually helps with stability; not when compared to the beam of the boat. It also certainly doesn't make the multihull self righting. So, why isn't it just a daggerboard without any weight in it?

Beau

 

Simple reason for the monohull vs multihull, load carrying capacity. We would spend five or six months at a time between stops where we could pick up supplies (fuel, food, parts, etc...) Even on Saga, which weighed 35 tons and had a massive ability to carry weight, we loaded her way down. I really think a multihull would have just come to a stop with the 1,500 gallons of fuel, and the 10' by 5' by 6' freezer full of food.

I'm guessing we put at least 30,000 pounds of stuff aboard Saga. This wasn't a lightweight trip, we took nearly all of American living style with us. This is NOT something I would do again or recommend, but it was what we did and I think it eliminated the possibility of a multihull. But, I'm willing to learn more about multihulls that can really carry weight.

Regarding the split rig, I agree. Especially after having to make mid-ocean repairs to the mainsail headboard and luff rope after four days in 60+ knots of wind. It was/is too big and heavy. My problem with most split rigs, and this is not the rig's problem it's the designer, is that many boats with split rigs develop so much weather helm on a reach that you end up pulling the mizzen down just to balance the rig. I do know that's not the fault of the rig, but the fault of the designer putting a hull under the rig that develops a lot of weather helm when heeled and not having the center of effort far enough forward. Saga didn't develop weather helm from her mizzen (much) but that was because the silly thing was so small it didn't really do anything anyway, so we let the kids set and trim it, they couldn't hurt themselves and it gave 'em something to do.

B