Yachting and Boating World forums: clinker lute stern

A pretty sailing vessel is a combination of functional aesthetics. At present it is generally accepted that the lute stern developed as a method of extending the deck aft in order that the fishermen had more deck space to work the gear. It is likely that this idea was a development and/or works in combination with the method of raking and curving the transom over the rudder so that the vessels’ Achilles Heel was protected from jostling in crowded ports. There may be other reasons too and I would be keen to learn about them. Certainly the overhanging stern was in use early as the 16th century; the evolution to the beautiful lutes built between 1760 and 1860 in vessels from naval cutters, through yachts to the fishing fleet, was no swift invention. Our historical perspective is extremely tainted as the invention of the camera arrested in photographic print only a few instances of the lute stern while the shorter era of the lute’s descendant, the counter stern, is well documented.

With regard to the nobbies;
“Though yacht like in their lines these are not yachts that are being considered but fishing boats in which the concepts of underwater form developed within the average nobby hull, whether Welsh or Lancastrian, were up to sixty years ahead of contemporary yacht practice…”
pp. 203 Inshore Craft (Chatham Publishing. London 1997)

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