SAILING.
BOATS, ETC.
Cutters, owing to their excellent sailing qualities, are much employed as packets[10], revenue cruisers, smugglers, privateers, and in all cases requiring despatch. The boats commonly employed in parties of pleasure, &c., are also cutters.
[10] In the packet line, since the general adoption of steam, cutters are seldom if ever met with.—Ed. Fifth Edition.
On the size of these vessels, however, it is necessary to remark, that a cutter under one hundred tons is sufficiently handy; but, when the size is equal to that of the larger yachts, a strong crew is necessary, as the spars are very heavy, and a number of men requisite to set or shorten sail. As a single-masted vessel, in the event of springing a spar, becomes helpless, even large cutters are used only in short voyages, or on the coast; for, in case of accident, they can always manage to reach some harbour or anchorage to repair any damage they may sustain. The peculiar qualities of beating well to windward, and working on short tacks, adapt cutters peculiarly for Channel cruising.
Although, some years back, large cutters were confined principally to the navy and revenue, the Royal Yacht Squadron, in theirs, have exceeded these not only in size, but in beauty and sailing qualities. Some of the finest and fastest cutters in the world are the property of this national club; and two of them, the Alarm (Mr. Weld’s), and the Arundel[11], (the Duke of Norfolk’s), measure 193 and 188 tons. The inconvenient size, however, of a cutter’s boom and mainsail has caused the very general introduction of a ketch rig, which, by the addition of a mizen, permits the boom to be dispensed with, and reduces the mainsail considerably. This rig, indeed, when the mizen stands well, is elegant; and, if a vessel is short-handed, it is very handy. As cutter-rigged vessels, instead of a regular mainsail, with its boom and gaff, have sometimes a mere spritsail, it is necessary we should observe, that the inferior convenience and safety of these preclude our noticing them here. It is also necessary that we should explain why, in the sequel, we do not even refer to lugger-rigged vessels.
[11] The tonnage of the Arundel is not given here according to the Royal Yacht Squadron list: there it is stated to be 210 tons.—Ed. Fifth Edition.
Luggers are more difficult to work or manœuvre; they require a greater number of men; their spars are so heavy that they require all hands to move them: their decks are inevitably lumbered with spars, &c.; their canvass gets rotted from exposure; and their expense is much greater than that of cutters. They generally have two sets of lugs—large ones, which require dipping every time they tack, and small working lugs, which do not require dipping, the tack coming to the foot of the mast. The latter are generally used, except in making long reaches across the Channel, &c. A lugger, moreover, is seldom fit to be altered to any thing but a schooner, not having breadth enough for one mast, which, after all, is the best for beauty and speed.