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
Sailing have any number of masts provided the second from the front is the tallest (called the "main mast"). In both a ketch and a yawl, the foremost mast is tallest, and thus the main mast, while the rear mast is shorter, and called the mizzen mast. The difference between a ketch and a yawl is that in a ketch, the mizzen mast is forward of the rudderpost (the axis of rotation for the rudder), while a yawl has its mizzen mast behind the rudderpost. In modern parlance, a brigantine is a vessel whose forward mast is rigged with square sails,