Sloop or Ketch?

[maxheadspace]

Am looking at getting into sailing. I've found both sloops and ketches in the size/price that I'm looking at. My intended use is coastal cruising, possibly the islands. What are the pros and cons for these two types? I'm fairly new to sailing, so this will be my first boat. Suggestions?

Thanks!
Max.

[Giulietta]

Max,

welcome to sailnet.

If you are getting into it now, and have never sailed before, or sailed only a few times, don't you thinks it would be better to get lessons first, see how you like to sail and if YOU like to sail first, then worry about what type of rig you should buy??

But a sloop would easier to sail.

Welcome once again. Please ignore a few of ther guys here,namely:

Sailingdog, Camaraderie, Cruisingdad, sailortjk1,bestfriend,joel73,sailaway21,ianhlnd,tr ueblue,hellosailor,t34c,tartan34,faster, pbzeer (specially him), and more.....
they will take your photo and photoshop you to humiliation...believe me

[Valiente]

A ketch is complicated in some senses and easier than others. Its prime purpose is for reaching and running, and it is appropriate for long-term voyaging with short-handed crew, because the sailplan is spread out, and the masts can be shorter and can carry individually less sail area than would be, for instance, on a sloop of comparable waterline length. They are also easier to balance in the sense that a staysail and a reefed mizzen can drive a boat in fairly bad conditions but under reasonable control.

The downside is that it takes time to learn how to handle those four typical sails (you could have a mizzen staysail and a spinnaker, as well), and there is added complexity, more winches, more gear and more weight aloft (As an aside, triatic stays are idiotic). A sloop is faster in lighter air, generally, and can generally point higher due to the larger jib.

I would say if you are new to sailing, crew on a sloop and see if you can cruise as crew on a ketch (few ketches race these days). A ketch is a big commitment (they tend to be bigger boats), and I would hate to see you disappointed if you just wanted a "fun" boat. A ketch can be a lot of fun, but they aren't really sport boats.

[camaraderie]

Max...As you can see, I own a ketch but all my previous boats were sloops.
I think that up to a certain size, a sloop is both easier to deal with and sails more efficiently to windward.
Once you get into larger boats...splitting up the sails makes a difference in how strong you need to be...and gives you more choices in balancing the boat in heavy weather. In practice...the mizzen is virtually self tending, but there is a little adjusting and certainly hoisting and dousing to deal with.
For us...the big advantage to having a ketch rig was that it reduced the height of the main mast so we can get under the ICW bridges. The sloop version of my boat cannot.
Bottom line: Up to about 40 feet get a sloop unless you just want to be jaunty looking! 40-45'...your choice based on windward ability vs. handling tradeoffs...45'+...consider a ketch unless you have plenty of crew and like to go a couple of tenths of a knot faster to windward.

[sailingdog]

Max-

It would help if you said what size range of boats you're looking at. Ketches, as long-distance cruisers, also have some advantages in the larger sizes in that the sails are lighter and smaller than a sloop of comparable size, and the mizzen mast makes for a good wind-generator or radar mast.

[britcoal]

Originally Posted by camaraderie

Bottom line: Up to about 40 feet get a sloop unless you just want to be jaunty looking! 40-45'...your choice based on windward ability vs. handling tradeoffs...45'+...consider a ketch unless you have plenty of crew and like to go a couple of tenths of a knot faster to windward.

Is a few tenths of a knot really the only difference? I was lead to understand that ketches were (generally) worse to windward than that, compared to sloops.

[Valiente]

They don't point as well, either. Generally, pointing ability goes this way: sloop, cutter, ketch, schooner. That's why you'll see ketches (when you do see them) on passage rather than racing around the buoys).

I like ketches a lot, but they are specialized equipment. A sloop is more generalized. On a reach in a tradewind, I'll take the ketch...it will likely be faster if all else is equal because it can set a great deal more sail. If you've ever seen a ketch with a fisherman's, a mizzen staysail and all other sail set, you'll see why it's liable to outrun a sloop.

Ah, here's one: A big ketch with furled staysail and jib, but with Code Zero, full main and mizzen and mizzen staysail (you can also fly a mizzen spinnaker)

[Jeff_H]

Hello Maxheadspace:

Welcome aboard. I think that Alex (Guilietta) hit the nail on the head when he said, get out there and learn to sail and you will develop your own preferences and tastes in rigs. I have attached a draft of an article that I wrote for another venue that has been posted here many times before but which should prove helpful in explaining the various rigs.

Respectfully,
Jeff

"The next topic in our ongoing discussion on selecting the ideal boat is rigs. Like most of the topics to date, there is no single universally ‘right answer’ when it comes to the topic of rigs. Boats are designed as systems and each of the various rig types have their purpose and are best suited to particular hull types, and applications. The quality of the design is also important as a poorly designed rig of any type can make for a miserable sailing vessel that is hard on the crew and the boat alike.


Cutter and Sloop rig

These are the most common rigs being produced today. In current usage these terms are applied quite loosely as compared to their more traditional definitions. Traditionally the sloop rig was a rig with a single mast located forward of 50% of the length of the sailplan. In this traditional definition a sloop could have multiple jibs. Cutters had a rig with a single mast located 50% of the length of the sailplan or further aft, multiple headsails and in older definitions, a reefing bowsprit (a bowsprit that could be withdrawn in heavy going). Somewhere in the 1950's or 1960's there was a shift in these definitions such that a sloop only flew one headsail and a cutter had multiple headsails and mast position became irrelevant. For the sake of this discussion I assume we are discussing the modern definition of a sloop and a cutter.

Historically, when sail handling hardware was primitive and sails were far more stretchy than they are today, the smaller headsails and mainsail of a traditional cutter were easier to handle and with less sail stretch, allowed earlier cutters to be more weatherly (sail closer to the wind) than the sloops of the day. With the invention of lower stretch sailcloth and geared winches, cutters quickly lost their earlier advantage.

Today sloops are generally closer winded and easier to handle. Their smaller jibs and larger mainsail sailplan are easier to power up and down. Without a jibstay to drag the Genoa across, sloops are generally easier to tack. With less hardware sloops are less expensive to build.

Sloops come in a couple varieties, masthead and fractional. In a masthead rig the forestay and jib originates at the masthead. In a fractional rig, the forestay originated some fraction of the mast height down from the masthead. Historically, sloops were traditionally fractionally rigged. Fractional rigs tend to give the most drive per square foot of sail area. Their smaller jibs are easier to tack and they reef down to a snug masthead rig. Today they are often proportioned so that they do not need overlapping headsails, making them even easier to sail. One of the major advantages of a fractional rigs is the ability when combined with a flexible mast, is the ability to use the backstay to control mast bend. Increasing backstay tension does a lot of things on a fractional rig: it tensions the forestay flattening the jib, and induces mast bend, which flattens the mainsail and opens the leech of the sail. This allows quick depowering as the wind increases and allows a fractional rig to sail in a wider wind speed range than masthead rig without reefing, although arguably requiring a bit more sail trimming skills.

While fractional rigs used to require running backstays, better materials and design approaches have pretty much eliminated the need for running backstays. That said, fractional rigs intended for offshore use, will often have running backstays that are only rigged in heavy weather once the mainsail has been reefed. The geometry of these running backstays typically allows the boat to be tacked without tacking the running backstays.

Masthead rigs came into popularity in the 1950's primarily in response to racing rating rules that under-penalized jibs and spinnakers and so promoted bigger headsails. Masthead sloops tend to be simpler rigs to build and adjust. They tend to be more dependent on large headsails and so are harder to tack and also require a larger headsail inventory if performance is important. Mast bend is harder to control and so bigger masthead rigs will often have a babystay that can be tensioned to induce mast bend in the same way as a fractional rig does. Dragging a Genoa over the babystay makes tacking a bit more difficult and slower. While roller furling allows a wider wind range for a given Genoa, there is a real limit (typically cited 10% to 15%) to how much a Genoa can be roller furled and still maintain a safely flat shape.

Cutters, which had pretty much dropped out of popularity during a period from the end of WWII until the early 1970's, came back into popularity with a vengeance in the early 1970's as an offshore cruising rig. In theory, the presence of multiple jibs allows the forestaysail to be dropped or completely furled, and when combined with a reefed mainsail, and the full staysail, results in a very compact heavy weather rig (similar to the proportions of a fractional rigged sloop with a reef in the mainsail). As a result the cutter rig is often cited as the ideal offshore rig. While that is the theory, it rarely works out that the staysail is properly proportioned, (either too small for normal sailing needs and for the lower end of the high wind range (say 20-30 knots) or too large for higher windspeeds) and of a sail cloth that makes sense as a heavy weather sail or which is too heavy for day to day sailing in more moderate conditions. Also when these sails are proportioned small enough to be used as heavy weather sails, these rigs will often develop a lot of weather helm when being sailed in winds that are too slow to use a double reefed mainsail. Like fractional rigs, cutter rigs intended for offshore use, will often have running backstays that are only rigged in heavy weather once the mainsail has been reefed. Unlike the fractional rig, the geometry of these running backstays typically requires that the running backstays be tacked whenever the boat is tacked.

Cutters make a less successful rig for coastal sailing. Generally cutters tend to have snug rigs that depend on larger Genoas for light air performance. Tacking these large Genoas through the narrow slot between the jibstay and forestay is a much harder operation than tacking a sloop. As a result many of today's cutters have a removable jibstay that can be rigged in heavier winds. This somewhat reduces the advantage of a cutter rig (i.e. having a permanently rigged and ready to fly small, heavy weather jib).

Cutters these days generally do not point as close to the wind as similar sized sloops. Because of the need to keep the slots of both headsails open enough to permit good airflow, the headsails on a cutter cannot be sheeted as tightly as the jib on a sloop without choking off the airflow in the slot. Since cutters are generally associated with the less efficient underbodies that are typical of offshore boats this is less of a problem that it might sound. Cutters also give away some performance on deep broad reaches and when heading downwind because the Genoa acts in the bad air of the staysail.

Yawls and Ketches:

As I said at the start of this discussion, boats are systems and when it comes to one size fits all answers, there is no single right answer when it comes to yawls and ketches either. A Yawl is a rig with two masts and the after mast (the mast that is further aft or further back in the boat) is aft of the rudder. A ketch is a rig with two masts, the after mast is forward of the rudder. Either rig can have either a single jib or multiple jibs. When a Yawl or a Ketch has multiple jibs it is referred to a Yawl or a Ketch with multiple headsails. It is considered lubberly to refer to that rig as a 'cutter ketch' or 'cutter Yawl'.

I lump yawls and ketches together here because the share many similar characteristics. Ketches, in one form or another, have been around for a very long time. In the days before winches, light weight- low stretch sail cloth, high strength- low stretch line, and low friction blocks, breaking a rig into a lot of smaller sails made sense. It made it easier to manhandle the sails and make adjustments. Stretch was minimized so the sails powered up less in a gust and although multiple small sails are less efficient, the hulls were so inefficient that the loss of sail efficiency did not hurt much. Multiple masts, along with bowsprits and boomkins, allowed boats to have more sail area that would be spread out closer to the water. In a time of stone internal ballasting, and high drag in relatinship to stability, this was important as it maximized the amount of drive while minimizing heeling. In theory, multiple masts meant more luff length and more luff length meant more drive forces to windward. But multiple masts also meant more weight and much more drag. There are also issues of down draft interference, meaning that one sail is operating in the disturbed and turbulent air of the sails in front of it, which also greatly reduces the efficiency of multi mast rigs.

Yawls really came into being as race rule beaters. They are first seen in the 1920's as a rule beater under the Universal and International rules. They continued to be popular under the CCA rule as well. Under these rules, the sail area of jibs and mizzens were pretty much ignored in the rating. This popularized the masthead rig and the yawl.

There was a basis for not measuring the sail area of a yawl under these rules. On a yawl going to windward, the mizzenmast and sail generally actually produce more drag than they do drive. This is because the mizzen is sailing in really turbulent air and has to be over trimmed to keep from luffing which can effectively act as an airbrake. This is slightly less of the case on a ketch where the size of the mizzen is large enough to provide a larger percentage of the