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
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,