ketch

A vessel of the galliot order, equipped with two masts viz. the main and mizen masts usually from 100 to 250 tons burden. Ketches were principally used as yachts for conveying great personages from one place to another. The peculiarity of this rig, affording so much space before the main-mast, and at the greatest beam, caused them to be used for mortar-vessels, hence

♦ Bomb-ketches, which are built remarkably strong, with a greater number of riders than any other vessel of war, as requisite to sustain the violent shock produced by the discharge of their mortars. (See bomb-vessel, mortar, and shell.)