Ketch Barrymore. In the film, the boat was named the "Sea Serpent". 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
15,000 Miles in a Ketch and Indian seas to outside Melbourne Harbour in July 1909. The voyage totalled a distance of 15,000 miles, which is where the name of the novel originates. Although du Baty's native language was French, 15,000 Miles in a Ketch was first published in English. It was later translated to and published in French in 1991 by Ed. maritimes et d'outre-mer under the title, Aventures aux Kerguelen. Since Francis Drake went round the world in the Golden Hind there has perhaps been no voyage quite so venturesome as that in a little French fishing ketch, of forty-five tons, called the J.B.