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
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