Ketch mizzen sheet. So on a ketch, the dual purpose of the mizzen sail is to both propel and balance the vessel, while on a yawl, the smaller mizzen mainly serves the purpose of trim or balance. Yawls tend to have mainsails almost as large as those of comparable sloops. A ketch may be distinguished from a cutter or a sloop by virtue of having two masts rather than one, though a ketch with two foresails is sometimes called a "cutter-rigged ketch". Both the ketch and the yawl differ from the two-masted schooner, whose aft mainmast is taller than the foremast.
Ketch the latter part of the 18th century. The ketch continued in use as a specialized vessel for carrying mortars until after the Napoleonic wars, in this application it was called a bomb ketch. The original "Atlantis", the seagoing research vessel of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution commissioned in 1931, was a steel-hulled ketch. In 1989 Bruce Farr designed the Maxi ketch "Steinlager 2", the first maxi yacht built of composite carbon construction. This revolutionary lightweight design went on to win the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1989/90. In 1947 a radio program called "Voyage of the Scarlet Queen" was