Page:Small-boat sailing; an explanation of the management of small yachts, half-decked and open sailing-boats of various rigs; sailing on sea and on river; cruising, etc (IA smallboatsailing01knig).pdf/134

 small jib, and reefed foresail, she will jog along very comfortably.

For knocking about on stormy waters the is to be preferred even to the yawl. This is the snuggest and handiest of all rigs, and is the favourite for our deep-sea fishing-boats and coasters. The ketch, see Fig. 41, like the yawl, has a main and mizzen mast; but the mainsail is smaller and the boom shorter than the yawl's; while the mizzen-mast is not stepped in the counter, but is well inboard, so as just to clear the main boom, and carries a much larger sail than the yawl's mizzen. No mizzen-bumpkin is needed for the sheet, and the mizzen-boom works on a horse on the counter. The mizzen-mast is rigged like the mainmast with shrouds and runners, and also has shifting forestays with tackles. The mizzen-sail has a gaff like the mainsail, its luff is fastened to mast-hoops, it is hoisted by throat and peak halyards, and a jib-headed topsail is often set above it. I cruised for two summers on the Baltic on a ketch of three tons register; and, remembering that experience, were I ever again to fit out a small vessel for an ocean voyage, I would certainly—more especially if my crew was composed of amateurs—adopt this very safe and handy rig, even though it were at the expense of a little speed.

The yawl and ketch require fewer hands to handle them than the cutter. Thus, when I visited the desert island of Trinidada with my fifty-six tonner, the Alerte, the majority of my companions were