I can answer a little about the sloop vs cutter. I had a 39ft cutter at one time and many sloops.

Advantage of the cutter over sloop that I found was mainly more flexibility in what sails you could rig for different wind. ie. You've got 3 sails and the different sizes of each. And it looked great under full sail. Disadvantage - more work tacking, hoisting and furling! I prefer the sloop :-)

Back when I had a Mottle 33 a friend had a ketch with slightly less water line length. He was always slightly faster than us Very annoying until he ran aground one day on a mud bar and we missed it and sailed past

With my ketch I only use the mainsail when other people are onboard, I find it easier with the mizzen just behind me. As for speed I will let you know how I go against my mates cav 32 as we will be cruising together over the next 5 months. Hopefully leaving next week

I have sailed a cutter rig single handed overseas for 10 years and have been through all weather conditions and found it to be easily handled solo.
I now have a Cavalier 32 sloop and find it to be great but a little, if I was going OS again I would go cutter rig.
As far as speed goes between a ketch and sloop I'll have to let you know after the trip with oldboyracer

oldboyracer said..
With my ketch I only use the mainsail when other people are onboard, I find it easier with the mizzen just behind me. As for speed I will let you know how I go against my mates cav 32 as we will be cruising together over the next 5 months. Hopefully leaving next week

Something is seriously wrong with the cav if it's not faster than a manitu.

We have been cruising in company for the last two weeks with an awsome couple on beautiful Shannon 43 ketch. They very very rarely use the main. They tend to use the genny or yanky with the mizzin or the spinnaker only. Since meeting them we have largely left the sails in their bags and used the spin only too. Right now the wind though is even too light for that

Back in gwaluly, will fit new rigging to the mizzen Monday.then I'm done haven't looked at weather yet but hoping to leave Thursday. Having a farewell drink onboard Sunday. Little do they know I still have paint and paintbrushes there.

I believe ketch, cutter and yawl rigs are very appropriate for medium to heavy displacement yachts say 40 foot and over providing they are correctly designed.

I favour having the head sail and stay sail on roller furlers with those types of yacht for the flexibility they give.

So what about a cutter rigged ketch?

I like the ketch rigg ( because that's what I've got ) I can single hand her ok, but it's more fun with a friend. As for speed, well there's a reason they don't race sprays ! We have sometimes seen 7kts but more often 4 or 5kts that's what you get with a fat heavy boat. Double headsails anytime I get a chance, still got my eye out for an big skiff spinnaker to use as a mizzen staysail

I found this a good read as I had little idea on the topic

www.jordanyachts.com/3745

I must admit, the only time I did a passage (880 miles or so) on a ketch I was underwhelmed. What really struck me was the difficulty of the much-touted dropping the main. If you drop a jib it sits on the deck and is easy to secure. If you drop a main you have to furl the main onto a stick several feet above the deck. Obviously lazyjacks would make a difference but they also take away much of the ketch's supposed advantage.

The extra mast is expensive, so while ketches can be faster on reaches it's just because they can hang up more expensive sails. And on a beat, the mizzen is normally just drag, which is why many racing ketches furled the mizzen almost all the time upwind.

I don't really understand the idea that you can use the ketch rig to balance the boat. What boat isn't balanced when sailed appropriately or at cruising pace?

I may have expressed that wrongly. I'm aware of the geometry and other issues involved. What I meant was that most boats, when trimmed correctly, do not develop excess weather helm when sailing at fast cruising speed, even if they are sloops. The split rig can therefore be seen as the answer to a question that should not be asked.

As you say, most boats want to luff up when they heel, and on a sloop the CoE moves forward as you reef. Normally, these two things counteract each other to keep the boat in balance with just a little bit of tweaking, and you'd normally do that tweaking to sail well anyway. Okay, many people oversheet the main in strong winds - but that's a technique issue and not a design issue that is best solved by sticking an extra expensive stick on.

Even in something as simple as a Laser, if you are suffering excessive weather helm then the problem is the way you're sailing it, and even on the simplest rig it's normally fairly easy to cure with appropriate sail trim. Chucking on an extra mast to do what you could do by adjusting the vang and mainsheet seems to be a bit excessive.

Of course, the extra downwind sail of a ketch is appreciate by many, as is the opportunity to play with more sails and to hang things like radar sets. Some people love them and that's great.

I did't say you didn't want to reduce sail area and keep the angle of heel low. The point is that if you do that in the most effective way then most good sloops will stay in balance anyway. Since most good and well-sailed sloops don't get out of balance, the claimed "superior balancing ability" of a ketch seems redundant.

The Dashew book is interesting; thanks. I was within sight of their more experienced friends when the friends met the worst seas in their 200,000 miles of sailing. We were on a fractional sloop which remained balanced even when under storm trysail only.

Those friends of the Dashews, by the way, respect the Dashews but don't agree with their thinking on boats. It's one of those things where reasonable and experienced people can all have valid and differing opinions based on their own preferences, just as I prefer not to have a ketch since I don't need assistance with balancing the boat.