Revenue cutters

The Coast Guard and its illustrious predecessors have referred to their largest vessels as cutters (today a cutter is any Coast Guard vessel over 65 feet in length); different types of vessels have carried the name "revenue cutter". President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Act to Create the Coast Guard on January 28, 1915. The United States Revenue Cutter Service ceased to exist as a unit, and men and vessels became a part of the United States Coast Guard Service. The rank of the officers remains unchanged, and their vessels continue the same duties, although they are now known as coast guard cutters.
U.S. Coast Guard WWW Home page, Jan. 20, 2004 (The "system of cutters," the Revenue Marine, and the Revenue Cutter Service, as it was known variously throughout the nineteenth century, referred to its vessels as cutters; the term, English in origin, refers to a specific type of sailing vessel, namely, "a small, decked ship with one mast and bowsprit, with a gaff mainsail on a boom, a square yard and topsail, and two jibs or a jib and a staysail"; b; general usage, however, that term came to define any vessel of Great Britain's Royal Customs Service; the U.S. Treasury Department adopted that term at the creation of its "system of cutters"; since that time, no matter what the vessel type, the Coast Guard and its illustrious predecessors have referred to their largest vessels as cutters (today a cutter is any Coast Guard vessel over 65 feet in length); different types of vessels have carried the name "revenue cutter".