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Form follows function, and thus we see a powerful fast sailing middle distance fishing vessel, needing speed to carry fresh catches home, without the lower freeboard of trawling vessels.

In the 1820s a class of racing yachts in Dublin were modelled on the Kinsale Hookers, but 50 years earlier, the yachts of the Water Club of Cork were so similar to these working craft that they could race together, with both yachts and hookers required to sail without topsails. Indeed it seems that the Cork yachts may have been the model for the Kinsale Hookers, which may account for the pronounced tumblehome. More easily understood when one appreciates that the same builders would have been constructing them, perhaps side by side. Remarkably, the model’s rig has been preserved and it shows a cutter rig typical of the mid 19th century. By this time, the influence of the classic English Channel cutter is also evident. The forward end of the boom is curiously fitted very low, on the main beam, thus avoiding stressing the mast, but making it difficult for the boom to swing out far. The absence of bowsprit bitts, supporting the heel of the bowsprit is also a puzzle, but it also harks back to the unstayed bowsprits of the Dutch element of the Cork yachts. The Galway Hookers are a smaller version of this Kinsale vessel, without its elegant counter.

It is believed that this model may have been commissioned for one of the Great Exhibitions, but the builder is not known.