I've always admired the way a ketch looks and have wondered what it would be like to sail one. So when the opportunity presented itself to charter a Morgan 41 Out Islander ketch down in Mexico over the holidays, I decided to have at it. The Morgan differs from our Hunter 37.5 in several respects. In addition to the ketch rig, it has a full keel, a center cockpit, hydraulic steering, seventies vintage gear, and a displacement of about 24,000 pounds. For those who have wondered about different kinds of boats, I thought a comparison to our Hunter might be interesting. The boat was not well maintained but I'll try to keep that out of my comparison. The ketch rig istelf was a piece of cake. Splitting the rig between main and mizzen meant we were dealing with smaller sails that were easy to raise, lower, and trim, even without the Dutchman system and Battcars we have on our boat. The boat was sluggish in light air, but moved nicely in 15-16 knots with an easy motion. The sluggishness I think related to it's heavy displacement. I had hoped the wind would kick up to 25 knots or so as I wanted to sail under jib and jigger (jib and mizzen) but the opportunity never presented itself. I HATED the hydraulic steering. I had no feel of the pressure on the rudder. I would turn the wheel a quarter of a turn and nothing would happen. We were constantly oversteering and having to correct. Even after a week on the boat I didn't have a feel for it. The hydraulic steering was mushy enough that I couldn't get a feel for the difference between the full keel and my fin keel. The center cockpit was ok. I think it's probably great for open ocean stuff as you feel more protected. The cockpit was over the engine room and the passageway aft, so headroom in the very large aft cabin was excellent. The flip side is you feel a little more removed from the water. This Morgan was built in 1979 and hadn't really been updated much. None of the winches was self-tailing. The only lines that could be trimmed from the cockpit were the sheets. Not much thought had gone into ergonomics, and the genoa sheet winches in particular were hard to access easily from the cockpit and crank with any force. The main cabin was pretty dark and poorly laid out relative to our Hunter 37.5. Overall reaction: My wife asked to stop at the marina on our way home to give Wanderlust (our H37.5) a kiss. Me too but I enjoyed the experience of sailing a different boat. Gary Wyngarden S/V Wanderlust H37.5
