The 1745 Parliamentary Committee formed "to enquire into the causes of the most infamous practice of smuggling and consider the most effective methods to prevent the said practice" was told by more than one witness that the ships of the smugglers "were the best sailing fore-and-afters that were built in those days, and could easily out sail both the King's ships and the Custom House sloops."

A few lines of terminology are necessary. The term 'cutter' covered a variety of rigs, perhaps in the 18th century best describing hull form and use. Certainly until 1750 the Commissioners of Customs refused to allow their vessels to be called cutters, a boat called a cutter being synonymous with smuggling. Customs vessels were known as sloops and an Excise vessel as a yacht; ‘a ship used by the authorities for chasing smugglers and the like.' By the late 18th century Revenue vessels became known as cutters. It must be re-iterated that the name cutter represents a variety of rigs at this time (the word ‘smack' would more accurately describe a cutter rigged vessel.) Cutter indicates use which itself indicates expected hull form.

“The term cutter indicated a clinker planked hull; cutter built referring to this construction rather than to rig." J. Leather

By the 1780s the builders of the smuggling vessels had made significant design advances that enabled them to out sail and out manoeuvre the vessels engaged by the authorities to combat the smuggling menace. The small working craft at that time, (luggers and cutters up to 60 tons to be generally classified as faster maids of all work) had retained the traditional bluff, tubby and liberally timbered hull form that was literally pushed through the water by a large spread of canvas carried aloft. This was the so-called traditional 'cod's head and mackerel's tail' hull form, the essential characteristic of the design being that the point of greatest hull breadth was forward of amidships, giving the boat very buoyant forward sections. It meant that a lot of water had to be shouldered out of the way. An innovation in design was prompted by the urgency of those smuggling. A man intent on breaking the law needed a seaworthy boat that would be faster than those above described in which the preventative services may chase him. While the forward sections above the waterline retained fullness, the underwater hull form both forward and aft was fined. Long ‘illegal' bowsprits and clinker construction for a light hull with stiffness and strength became popular.

To the left is a Lowestoft fishing lugger of about 1860. Sadly there are no photographs of smuggling boats, the Free Trade having been largely snaffled by the time cameras could afford us a window into the past. No sensible free trader would have visually recorded his boat and labelled it a smuggler anyway. The whole trade was undercover, and has itself past into unrecoverable history with those purveyors of fine brandy and French lace themselves. It is the way of all successful crimes. We glean what we can. Some boats were caught and before being sawn up had their lines taken off, due to their notable performance. These can be found in Admiralty records. The majority of those smuggling were officially fisherman and here is a fishing boat 40 years later (built how many years earlier?) on the East Anglian coast where, along with the West country and Kentish coasts, smuggling was rife. She demonstrates the fine underwater bow and long run leading up to a lute stern. The bows above water have further evolved to a finer shape. In LT500 can be seen the further development of refinements in design that came about at the beginning of the 1800's. This may seem an obvious sentence to have written; of course this developed from an earlier shape, that is how evolution works. However, the point is that with only a little distortion, here one can see an earlier boat.  Two masted luggers were inexistence by 1800, although at this stage three masters were more common. They co-existed until three masters died out about 1840.

Smuggling goods was, and no doubt still, is an extremely profitable business. As a single run could easily pay for the cost of building a vessel, quality was not tempered by the restricting factor of cost when a man sought a builder for an illicit trading ‘fishing boat'.

"We should therefore not be surprised to learn that the best Cutter builders were engaged in building for the smugglers and the 'gentlemen sailors'…"

During the early days of Customs and Excise (two different and amusingly rival departments) some patrol vessels were contracted and others commissioned to be built by individual customs collectors. In a good builders yard one might conceivably find while fine-tuning the proportions for a Revenue Service vessel, beside it an equally swift hull was growing for smuggling duties…but nobody would admit to that.

"The logic of the process suggests that as the revenue authorities were having Cutters built by shipbuilders who had honed their skills on building Cutters to out sail the authorities, the final products must have been well matched."

Not so; Arnold-Forster in 'At War With The Smugglers' offers the following comment on clinker construction and the Revenue Cutters:

"These typical English cutters were always clinker built ... being considered more suitable for rough and tumble work than the smooth-sided carvel fashion more commonly used by foreign boat builders. Those for the Customs service, being required to keep the sea for long periods in all weathers, had to be more stoutly built than the smugglers' vessels that could pick time and weather for their short runs."

By 1840 the Admiralty were involved and they insisted on a standard 'revenue cutter' design.  Fortunately for them smuggling had been stifled by that stage as the beauty of the initial contract and purchase system was that the shipbuilders, themselves the experts, were given a relatively free hand in the design process.

At this point I must say that all the vessels that are to be built by Revenue Cutters and Smuggling Luggers will err on the stoutly built side lending strength of hull and therefore longevity.

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