Yawl sternpost, and could usually be raised to allow the boat to be beached. Yawl A yawl is a two-masted sailing craft whose mainmast is taller than the mizzen mast (or aft-mast). Compared to a similar sized ketch, a yawl's mizzen mast is set further aft and its mizzen sail is smaller. Historically, the yawl was a commercial working vessel, but today, the yawl is a fore-and-aft rigged pleasure yacht. In Europe yawls are much less common than the more popular ketch. The yawl was originally developed as a rowboat with two small masts to assist the oarsmen. (When adding a
Jack Ketch in 1828. He is mentioned in the Charles Dickens novels "Oliver Twist", "The Pickwick Papers" and "David Copperfield" and in the C. M. Kornbluth science fiction story "The Marching Morons" (1951). More recently, Jack Ketch plays a role in Neal Stephenson's 2003 and 2004 volumes "Quicksilver" and "The System of the World", the first and last volumes, respectively, in his "The Baroque Cycle" series (though the last volume is set in 1714, well after the death of the historical Jack Ketch.) A Jack Ketch character appears in Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book". Jack Ketch is featured as a non-speaking character