A single mast and several sails
A cutter has one mast. What marks it out is the arrangement of sails and the place of the mast. Traditionally a cutter carried a fore-and-aft mainsail, a topsail above it, and two or more headsails, one of which was set on a long bowsprit. The mast stood somewhat further aft than on a single-headsail sloop, so there was space forward for several triangular sails, and the whole rig could be reduced by taking in the outer headsail and shortening the bowsprit.
Terminology is not fixed. In many places and periods the words “cutter” and “sloop” overlapped, and sailors sometimes used one for a boat that others would call the other. The word is also used for two unrelated things: a ship’s boat in a navy, and a fast official vessel, such as a revenue cutter, whatever its rig. This article is about the sail rig and the vessels that made it well known.
Revenue cutters
The cutter rig developed through the eighteenth century, in part for official duties. Governments needed fast, handy vessels to stop smuggling, and the cutter was well suited to that. In Britain, revenue cutters operated from the south and east coasts and elsewhere, enforcing customs duties. They were built to be fast, with a large spread of sail on a single mast, and they carried a few guns and a fairly large crew relative to their size.
Smugglers’ boats sometimes outpaced the cutters in particular conditions, and the contest between the two led to improvements on both sides. In the early nineteenth century, official measures were reorganised, and the Coast Guard was formed in Britain in 1822 by combining several earlier services.
In the United States, the Revenue-Marine, set up under Alexander Hamilton in 1790, used small sailing vessels to enforce customs law. The name “revenue cutter” stayed with the service for many years and later fed into the United States Coast Guard. It is an example of the cutter name outliving the sail plan, since later revenue cutters were steam-powered and then much larger.
Pilot cutters
Another use for the rig was pilotage. Pilots had to reach incoming ships out at sea, often in rough water, and win the competition for work by arriving first. This favoured fast, seaworthy single-masted boats that a small crew could handle.
The Bristol Channel pilot cutters are the best-known British example. These gaff-rigged cutters worked out of ports such as Cardiff, Newport and Barry in the nineteenth century, taking pilots to ships heading up the Severn estuary. French pilot boats working out of Le Havre had similar duties and a similar rig. A number of both types survive, and the Le Havre pilot cutter Jolie Brise, built in 1913, was a winner of the first Fastnet Race in 1925, which gives a sense of the quality of the design.
Pilot work was competitive and often dangerous, and the skills of the men involved were respected. The boats were designed to be sailed in rough weather with a small crew, and their shape, strong build and relatively simple rig influenced later yacht design.
The cutter as a yacht
During the nineteenth century, the cutter became a leading yacht type, especially in Britain. Owners and designers admired its speed and handiness, and the large gaff cutter, with a big mainsail, topsail and bowsprit, was the typical racing yacht in the major classes for many decades. The results of tonnage rules, and the competitive spirit of the clubs, produced steadily larger rigs and, in some cases, extreme hulls.
In the nineteenth century, a debate about the relative merits of the cutter and the yawl or schooner was a regular feature of yachting. Cutters were generally considered faster to windward, while the multi-masted rigs were considered more manageable. As the century went on, the cutter gained in reputation for racing, although a number of smaller yacht types in cruising used other rigs.
Yacht designers adapted the working cutter into more refined forms. Hull lines became finer, rigs became taller, and the topsails and long bowsprits were adapted for racing. Many of these ideas passed on to the sloops and cutters of the twentieth century, including the large yachts raced for the America’s Cup, which belong to the broader story of America Cup racing.
Handling a gaff cutter
The gaff cutter’s main sail has a spar, the gaff, at its top, which allows a taller, narrower shape than a square sail. The topsail sits above the gaff, and the headsails are set forward of the mast. The main attractions were the ability to carry a lot of sail on a single mast, and the choice of sail combinations to suit the wind. The disadvantages included a heavy mast and boom, and large sails that required a strong crew. On working craft, these disadvantages were managed through experience and a large crew, and they were quite acceptable when speed and seaworthiness were the aim.
The cutter’s legacy
The Bermuda rig gradually replaced the gaff on yachts through the twentieth century, but the name “cutter” survives in modern usage for single-masted yachts with a mast set well aft and more than one headsail. Today it is often used for boats built for offshore cruising, where the ability to set a staysail in addition to a jib is valued. The history of the cutter shows how a rig developed for official and commercial work could shift into leisure sailing and still keep its identity.