Page:The history of yachting.djvu/343

Rh sloop, a topmast and gaff having been added, but not a main boom; the jib set on a stay, and standing bowsprit.

Another portrait follows of an English packet-sloop, commanded by Captain Flynn, being brought to by the Dutch privateer brig, Good Expectation, October 28, 1783. At that period it appears that the rig of the British and American sloop was the same.

One of the earliest portraits of a British cutter is the Nimble, twelve guns, 168 tons, carrying a crew of sixty men. This vessel was purchased by the Government in 1781 and foundered during a heavy gale in the Kattegat, November 6, 1812.

The first cutter in the English Navy, as recorded by Charnock, was the Swift, captured from the French in 1761; length, gun-deck, 53 feet 10 inches; keel, 40 feet 4 ⅝ inches; breadth, 19 feet 7 ½ inches; depth, 8 feet 4 ½ inches; 83 tons; she mounted ten guns and carried a crew of thirty men. Apparently, at about this date, the cutter rig was first introduced into England, although it had been in existence for some time on the northern coast of the continent.

In 1781 a series of engravings was published by Kitchingman, which are here given. From them an idea may be formed of the model, construction, and rig of the English cutter of that period.

In 1806 the portraits of a sloop and cutter were drawn by Serres. Upon examining the reproduction herewith, one sees that the only difference in the rig is in the setting of the jib; the cutter's is