A lugger is a sailing vessel defined by its rig, using the lug sail on all of its one or more masts. Luggers were widely used as working craft, particularly off the coasts of

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and

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. Luggers varied extensively in size and design. Many were undecked, open boats, some of which operated from beach landings (such as

Hastings Hastings ( ) is a seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to th ...

or Deal). Others were fully decked craft (typified by the Zulu and many other sailing drifters). Some larger examples might carry lug topsails.

History

A lugger is usually a two- or three-masted vessel, setting lug sails on each mast. A jib or staysail may be set on some luggers. More rarely, lug topsails are used by some luggers — notably the

chasse-marée In English, a chasse-marée is a specific, archaic type of decked commercial sailing vessel. In French, ''un chasse-marée'' was 'a wholesale fishmonger', originally on the English Channel, Channel coast of France and later, on the Atlantic coa ...

. A lug sail is an asymmetric quadrilateral sail that fastens to a yard (spar) along the head (top edge) of the sail. The yard is held to the mast either by a parrel or by a traveller (consisting of a metal ring that goes round the mast and has an eye for the halyard and a hook which fastens to a strop on the yard). A dipping lug sail is fastened at the tack (front lower corner) some distance in front of the mast, often at the . A standing lug's tack is fastened near the foot of the mast. The halyard for a dipping lug is usually made fast to the weather gunwale, thereby allowing the mast to be otherwise unstayed. A common arrangement is to have a dipping lug foresail and a standing lug mizzen. This arrangement is found on many traditional British fishing vessels, such as the fifie, but there are examples of dipping lugs on two masts or standing lugs on two or three masts (as in the chasse-marée). Luggers at Looe Bay - panoramio

Rig

A standing lug may be used with or without a boom; most working craft were boomless to allow more working space. The dipping lug never uses a boom. A dipping lug has to be moved to the leeward side of the mast when going about, so that the sail can take a good aerodynamic shape on the new tack. There are several methods of doing this, one of which is to simply lower the sail, manhandle the yard and sail to the other side of the mast and re-hoist. All the various methods are time and labour consuming. A standing lug can be left unaltered when tacking as it still sets reasonably well with the sail pressed against the mast. Some users (such as in the Royal Navy Montagu whaler) would still dip the yard of a standing lug (with a sharp, well timed downward pull on the leech at the moment when the wind is not filling the sail). Conversely many fishermen would always hoist a standing lug on the same side of the mast regardless of which tack they expected to be sailing on.

Performance

Sailing performance with a standing lug relies on the right amount of luff tension. An essential component of this rig is the tack tackle, a purchase with which luff tension is adjusted for various points of sail. The balanced (or balance) lug has a boom that projects in front of the mast roughly the same distance as the yard. This is generally used in dinghies. The sail is left on the same side of the mast regardless of the wind direction. A downhaul is set up from the boom to a point close to the heel of the mast and its adjustment is critical to getting this sort of sail to set correctly. Luggers were used extensively for

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

from the middle of the 18th century onwards; their fast hulls and powerful rigs regularly allowed them to outpace any Revenue vessel in service. The French three-masted luggers also served as

privateer A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign o ...

s and in general trade. As smuggling declined from about 1840, the

mainmast The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected more or less vertically on the median line of a ship or boat. Its purposes include carrying sails, spars, and derricks, giving necessary height to a navigation light ...

of British three-masted luggers tended to be discarded, with larger sails being set on the fore and mizzen. This gave more clear space in which to work

fishing net A fishing net or fish net is a net (device), net used for fishing. Fishing nets work by serving as an improvised fish trap, and some are indeed rigged as traps (e.g. #Fyke nets, fyke nets). They are usually wide open when deployed (e.g. by cast ...

Local types

;British Isles * Coble, used on the English east coast from

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*Five Man boats, large 55–65 foot boats used for line fishing on the Yorkshire coast * Cornish lugger * Deal lugger, the two larger types of boat used by Deal boatmen to service ships anchored in the Downs. These were beach-launched open boats, originally three masted, but the main-mast was later dispensed with to allow more room, ultimately giving jib, dipping lug foresail and a standing lug mizzen sheeted to an

outrigger An outrigger is a projecting structure on a boat, with specific meaning depending on types of vessel. Outriggers may also refer to legs on a wheeled vehicle that are folded out when it needs stabilization, for example on a crane that lifts he ...

. A first-class lugger or "fore-peaker" was typically 38 feet long, 12 ft 3 inches at greatest beam, carried 6 tons of ballast in a clinker-built hull weighing 3.5 tons. They could carry a replacement

anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ', which itself comes from the Greek (). Anch ...

and cable out to a large ship – a load of at least six tons. * Fifie, a herring drifter of the Scottish east coast *

lugger * Manx nickey * Manx nobby Corenting-IMG 9716

* Sgoth Niseach, dipping lug ;Continental Europe * ''

Barca-longa A barca-longa (1600s, also barqua-; 1600s–1700s barco-longo) was a two- or three-masted lugger used near the coasts of Spain and Portugal, and more widely in the Mediterranean Sea. Barca-longas were used in Spain and Portugal for fishing, and w ...

'', of the Iberian and

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...

coasts * Breton ''

''. These were fast-sailing cargo vessels that took fresh fish to market, sometimes taking general cargo for the return trip. They set standing lugs on three masts and a jib. Topsails were often used and topgallants when racing. * French lugger (''lougre''), of the coast of

Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

;United States of America * ''New Orleans Lugger'' Oyster Luggers in New Orleans

(also known as an ''Oyster Lugger''). These shallow draft vessels were typically 37 ft overall with a 12 ft beam, although they could vary substantially in size. They set a dipping lug on a single mast and had a centre board to help go to windward in deeper waters. They were used principally for fishing, with some cargoes occasionally carried. They could be found from Texas to the West coast of Florida. ;Australia * Some of the early pearling luggers used off the northern coast line of Australia from about the 1870s, often ship's boats, carried a lug sail, but the purpose-built boats that were used from the 1880s stopped using it over time. The majority of these were

gaff-rig Gaff rig is a sailing rig (configuration of sails, mast and stays) in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar (pole) called the ''gaff''. Because of the size and sh ...

ketch A ketch is a two- masted sailboat whose mainmast is taller than the mizzen mast (or aft-mast), and whose mizzen mast is stepped forward of the rudder post. The mizzen mast stepped forward of the rudder post is what distinguishes the ketch f ...

es, although they continued to be called pearling luggers until the present day.

Notes

References

External links

Cornish Luggers: an online guideCornish Luggers: an online guide; Beer luggers
(formerly in use on the south Devon and Dorset coasts) {{Authority control Types of fishing vessels Boat types Sailing rigs and rigging