Cutter

When applied to boats or ships, the name cutter is defined in three different ways.

is concerned with the sailing rig
is concerned with the work for which the boat is useful and the way its oars are arranged
has to do with the organization owning the boat or ship.

Sailing

Traditionally the sloop rig was a rig with a single mast located forward of 50% of the length of the sailplan. In this traditional definition a sloop could have multiple jibs. Cutters had a rig with a single mast located 50% of the length of the sailplan or further aft, multiple headsails and reefing bowsprit. Somewhere in the 1950's or 1960's there was a shift in these definitions such that a sloop only flew one headsail and a cutter had multiple headsails and mast position became irrelevant.

In this modern idiom, then, a cutter is a sailing vessel with more than one head sail and one mast. In a traditional vessel there would normally be also, a bowsprit to carry the topmast forestay with the jib hanked to it. (The sloop carries only one head sail, properly called a foresail though nowadays usually called a jib.) Correctly speaking, a jib is set on the topmast forestay.

The term is English in origin and refers to a specific type of vessel, namely, "a small, decked ship with one mast and bowsprit, traditionally with a gaff mainsail, though not invariably so. The foot of the mainsail would normally be laced to a boom and the head to a gaff above which a gaff topsail would be set in suitable conditions. There would also be a foresail and jib and possibly a flying jib set above the jib.

Pulling

A pulling cutter was a boat carried by sailing ships for work in fairly sheltered water in which load-carrying capacity was needed, for example in laying a kedge. This operation was the placing a relatively light anchor at a distance from the ship so as to be able to haul her off in its direction. The oars were double-banked. That is, there were two oarsmen on each thwart. In a seaway, the longboat was preferred to the cutter as the finer lines of the stern of the former meant that it was less likely to broach to in a following sea. In the Royal Navy the cutters were replaced by 25 and 32 foot motor cutters. However, the cutters' traditional work had grown beyond the capacity of a boat as ships became larger. Though primarily a pulling boat, this cutter could also be rigged for sailing.

=Concerning the use of a kedge, see also:

Revenue

Historically, a cutter is any seaworthy vessel used in law enforcement duties of Great Britain's Royal Customs Service, known less formally, as 'The Revenue'. The case is similar with the United States Department of the Treasury's Revenue Cutter Service and in the fleets of other countries. Particularly in America, they were commonly schooners or brigs. In Britain, they were usually rigged as defined under Sailing (above). The Revenue did use other vessels as hulks moored in such places as coastal creeks from which officers worked in boats. This is how HMS Beagle ended her days.

United States Coast Guard

After a merger in 1915, the US Revenue Cutter Service became the United States Coast Guard. Cutters in the modern US Coast Guard are fast, lightly-armed and frequently used in patrol work. They are quite carefully defined as any Coast Guard vessel with a permanently assigned crew and accommodations for the extended support of that crew. See chapter 10 USCG Regulations These cutters are traditionally 65 ft. or greater in length. Larger cutters, over 180 feet (55 m) in length, are under control of area commands (Atlantic area or Pacific area). Cutters at or under 180 feet in length come under control of district commands. Cutters usually have a motor surf boat and/or a rigid hull inflatable boat on board. Polar Class icebreakers also carry an Arctic survey boat (ASB) and landing craft.

External links

U. S. Coast Guard Historian's Office

Ship types | Sailing vessels and rigging | Sailboat types