Ketch Ketch A ketch is a two-masted sailing craft whose mainmast is taller than the mizzen mast (or aft-mast). The name "ketch" is derived from "catch" or fishing boat. Historically the ketch was a northern European square-rigged vessel, often a freighter or fishing boat, particularly in the Baltic and North seas. Nowadays, a ketch tends to be a fore-and-aft rigged pleasure yacht, similar to a yawl; but a ketch's mizzen mast is taller and its mizzen sail is larger than a yawl's. The large fore-and-aft sail on the mainmast is the mainsail, while the sail on the mizzen mast is the
Jack Ketch took his place, but on 28 May, following his conviction for robbery, Rose himself was hanged at Tyburn and Ketch reinstated. Ketch died in November 1686. In 1836 a fictitious autobiography of Ketch, with illustrations from designs by Meadows entitled "The autobiography of Jack Ketch", was published. Another book entitled "Life of Jack Ketch with Cuts of his own Execution" was furnished by Tom Hood for the Duke of Devonshire's library at Chatsworth. Jack Ketch is one of the characters in Giovanni Piccini (d.1835) "The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Punch and Judy" as dictated to John Payne Collier,