Wishbone rig Wishbone rig A wishbone rig is a type of rigging on sailboats. This rigging is most popular on heavy two-masted vessels. On a ketch it is called wishbone ketch and is considered a subtype of ketch rigging. A wishbone ketch rigged vessel is a vessel that is rigged as a ketch where a permanent splitting gaff is mounted between two masts. Contrary to the gaff rig (where the gaff is hoisted together with the sail) the gaff stays in the mast. The gaff is typically fixed on the first mast (the one closer to the front) and fixed via a
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,