Cutter's are the British Yachts

Cutter Yachts

The Cutter is one of the most popular sailboats because it is fast, seaworthy, has multiple sail plans and can be sailed with a limited crew. The origin of the cutter is Dutch, but the English adopted it and the cutter is the most English of all sailing rigs.

The cutter is a single masted vessel rigged with a staysail, jib topsail, a mainsail, that is usually a gaff sail and is often loose-footed, and a topsail which may be jib-headed or set with a yard. The mast is placed between 2/5 and 1/3 of the waterline aft of the stem.

The cutter is a fast boat. They are rigged much like a sloop but often have larger and more sails. The cutter has a greater depth of hull and less freeboard than a sloop making them stiffer and more weatherly. Originally they were sharp bottomed, usually clench built and built for lightness.

Because they were fast vessels they were often the picked for illicit trade. In the mid 1700’s cutters were often termed “smuggling cutters”.  The British Navy used cutter boats as pilot boats, dispatch boats and used cutters to catch smugglers that used the same type boats.

The cutter rig was a great work rig. The work boat cutters were often short and beamy. They were used both as cargo boats as well as fishing boats. Cutters were used for trawling for shrimp and fish and others for dredging oysters and mussels. These cutters were very close in design to fishing smacks.

Today many of the old fishing cutters have been converted to cutter pleasure yachts.

Cutter yachts are popular because they are both fast and seaworthy and like a sloop are very weatherly. Many are now Marconi rigged like a sloop, forgoing the gaff rig. One big point for the cutter is that can be sailed with a limited crew, but still has multiple sail configurations for those that want the options.

There are a large number of strange variations to the cutter design. Each area or country has its own unique variation. Cutters were extensively used in Scandinavia, Germany, the Baltic and Holland. In the America’s the cutter rig is mostly used in Yachts.

In about the 1800’s racing Yachts started to become popular.  Speed became increasingly important and the fast cutter became a popular Yacht choice. The design and the amount of sail the racing cutters could fly was unreal. The Valkyrie III for example had a water line of 88’, but a length over all from bowsprit to the end of the mainsail boom was 129’.  The sail area on the boat was 13,028 square feet. This was an extreme racer of the ninth America's Cup race. 

Today the Cutter Yachts are a popular Yacht for cruising, racing, and just sport sailing. They can be fitted out with all the navigation instrumentation needed for cruising and safety.   Most cutters are Sailing Yachts, not motor sailers. They are for those sailors that want to sail there boats.