Lugger

For other uses, see Lugger (disambiguation).

Reaper under full sail

A lugger is a class of boat, widely used as traditional fishing boats, particularly off the coasts of France, England and Scotland. It is a small sailing vessel with lug sails set on two or more masts and perhaps lug topsails.

The name

A French lugger, beached and drying nets. The lugsail is spread on the beach. She is beached stern first as is normal. In beach-launched boats, the bow is designed to rise to surf without shipping water or broaching. Painted by Gustave Courbet around 1874.

According to Skeat, term "lugger" may come from Dutch, logger meaning "slow ship", and East Friesian, log meaning "slow" or it may come from the type of sail used (lug), which may derive from the ease with which it may be raised or "lugged".

Local types

British Isles

• Coble (not strictly a lugger as cobles have only one mast), used on the English east coast from Yorkshire to Northumberland
• Cornish lugger
• Fifie, a herring drifter of the Scottish east coast
• Hastings lugger
• Manx nickey
• Manx nobby
• Sgoth Niseach, dipping lug

1882 French lugger Łucja-Małgorzata

Continental Europe

• Barca-longa, of the Iberian and Mediterranean coasts
• Breton chasse-marée
• French lugger (lougre), of the coast of Normandy

See also

• Mystery, lugger
• Spirit of Mystery, replica of the lugger Mystery
• Sophie Theresia (herring lugger)
• Leopold Janikowski sailed in a lugger to Cameroon in 1882

Further reading

• Shearwood, Ken (1972) Evening Star: the story of a Cornish lugger. Truro: D. Bradford Barton

External links

• Cornish Luggers: an online guide
• Cornish Luggers: an online guide; Beer luggers (formerly in use on the south Devon and Dorset coasts)