Trawler

“ The steam trawler is many times more efficient than a smack, for it can fish in nearly all weathers, including calm, and it can trawl over rough bottoms, owing to its greater power, and can go much further afield. ”

“ Beneath them, lying high on the shingle, were the trawlers, lying ready for the morning when the fishermen would push them down into the sea.
"Tom Yeo and Jim Rattenbury are going to have a motor put into their trawler," Mary said. "It'll make a lot of difference to them. They'll be able to go out even when there isn't any wind."
Henry did not answer. ”

“ TRAWLS AND WHALES. A trawler, such as the Vixen was, is fitted out very differently from a seiner or a hand-liner, the styles of craft on which Breeze had made his previous fishing trips. Instead of a large seine-boat, she carries from four to eight dories, and a crew sufficiently large to allow two men to each dory, besides the skipper and cook. The trawls are tarred cotton ropes the size of a lead-pencil, that come in lengths of about fifty fathoms, or three hundred feet each. ”

“ More than a thousand sail of well-found trawlers are constantly engaged in sweeping the seas around our coast in this way, and it is to them that we owe a very large proportion of our supply of fish. The difficulty of trawling, like that of dredging, rapidly increases with the depth at which the operation is performed; and, until the other day, it is probable that trawling at so great a depth as 100 fathoms was something unheard of. But the first news from the Challenger opens up new possibilities for the trawl. ”

“ These are attached to the net and to the warps by which the net is towed in such a way that the pressure of the water upon them causes them to diverge, thus keeping the mouth of the net open. The size of a beam trawl is necessarily limited by the length of beam obtainable. The size of the otter trawl, however, is obviously only limited by the power of the steam trawler. ”

“ On nearly all the trawlers working out of Yarmouth, Grimsby, and Hull, the men are fine, manly, thoroughbred Englishmen, facing danger fearlessly and uncomplainingly year in and year out. Drunkenness is almost unknown among them, and bad language is rarely heard. If Charlie had been on almost any other boat than the Sparrow-hawk he would have thoroughly enjoyed sitting at the foc's'le table, having a chat with the men. But to save a few pounds the skipper had engaged, at low wages, men who were known to be bad characters, and who could not, therefore, get a job on any other trawler. ”

“ This latter fact discloses the ground of complaint which the fishermen who use the drift-net to take herrings have against the trawlers, who rake the seashores in their endeavours to catch the flat-fish tribe, and indeed whatever comes into their net: for a trawl is an omnium gatherum, and takes everything that is not strong enough to break its meshes. The cod and herring fishers say that these trawl-nets destroy the spawn of the fish by breaking it up, and also by raking the stones and mud over it. ”

“ A few nights later, there was another gale; a trawler was driven ashore, and her crew saved by the rocket apparatus.
Two or three nights later a Lowestoft smack was run down by a Norwegian barque, and the skipper and mate were drowned; one left a wife and four children, the other a wife and nine!
These casualties are happening constantly—they are so common they are scarcely reported, even in local papers; but what becomes of the widows and orphans?
A man's wages on the trawlers are 14s. a week, when his boat is at sea. ”

“ Ping Wang pointed to the horizon, where the smoke of about half-a-dozen trawlers was plainly visible.
'That's a fleet of steam trawlers,' he declared, 'and before midnight we shall be among them. When one comes within a mile or so of us, we will jump overboard and swim to her. The skippers and men on the steam trawlers belonging to the large fleets are splendid fellows, and when they hear what a beast Skipper Drummond is, they won't send us back. ”

“ Over a score of steam trawlers have been busy in our neighbourhood all the month. Sunday or Saturday is all the same to them; they are at it night and day, and the weather must be bad indeed to detain them in port. Often they are seen passing here burying themselves to the foremast in the seas on their way to the fishing grounds, perhaps twenty miles outside of us. ”

“ But the skilled North Sea fishermen who man the trawlers are the right men for this sort of work. They rapidly acquire all the tricks of sweeping, and soon learn to detect a mine that has been caught in the sweep by the singing of the sweep wire, the feel of it, and other delicate signs. The mine-sweeping trawlers are accompanied by a vessel whose duty it is to sink or explode by rifle fire the released mines as they appear on the surface. ”

“ C.—Large specimens appear to be decreasing; a great many immature are brought in and sold in the early winter. The trawlers mercilessly pursue the spawning fish. Prior to the advent of "carriers" to the fishing fleets, trawlers anchored in the roads; their fish were "ferried" ashore in huge ferry-boats, run up the beach on "troll-carts," and sent off to London by train. Trolls and ferry-boats are now obsolete. A solitary troll-cart is preserved in Yarmouth Museum. ”

“ Soon the gear was down in the twenty-five fathom water, and the trawl-warp became as rigid almost as an iron bar, while the speed of the smack through the water was greatly reduced—perhaps to three miles an hour—by the heavy drag behind her, a drag that ever increased as fish of all sorts and sizes were scraped into the net. Why the fish are such idiots as to remain in the net when they could swim out of it at the rate of thirty miles an hour is best known to themselves. ”

“ Do you know whether trawlers had guns mounted fore or aft?
GODT: They were almost always in the bows.
FLOTTENRICHTER KRANZBÜHLER: Can you remember, with the help of this extract from the war log and on the strength of your own recollection of the commander’s report, the exact details of this incident?
GODT: Originally the U-boat when submerged encountered a number of vessels escorting trawlers close to Cape Wrath. It tried to torpedo one of the trawlers.
THE PRESIDENT: Is the witness trying to reconstruct this from the document, reconstruct the incident? ”

“ Formerly, the fish as soon as they were caught, were sent to market in fast-sailing cutters, but now steamers are generally employed; the fish, as soon as collected, being packed in ice. The trawlers themselves stay out for six weeks at a time, in all seasons of the year. They are remarkably fine vessels, and capable of standing a great deal of rough work; and a hardier set of men than their crews can scarcely anywhere be found. Steam trawlers are gradually coming into use, being independent of wind and weather, and one boat is capable of doing the work of several ordinary vessels. ”

“ Trawling is said to have been invented at the end of the seventeenth century by the Brixham fishermen. The first trawlers were quite small vessels, and were followed towards the end of the eighteenth century by the smack. The smack reached its maximum size and efficiency at about the middle of the nineteenth century. Some of the smacks that are still fishing from Brixham—durable, seaworthy, and with beautiful lines—are probably a hundred years old. ”

“ And it is real ocean at Atlantic City. Far out one sees ships passing, the lean three-masted schooners of the American coasting trade, trawlers in fleets, tramp steamers, companionless things, all of these given to the real business of the sea, not to pleasure voyaging. The eye lingers on them, and it is hard afterwards to adjust the focus of the mental vision to the long wooden parade, itself almost a pier, the flaunting sky signs, the innumerable tiny shops where every kind of useless thing is sold. ”

“ On one occasion the Captain took them out trawling between the Nab and Warner light-ships; where a bank of sand stretches out to sea, forming the favourite fishing-ground of the Portsmouth watermen hailing from Point and the Camber at the mouth of the harbour.
“What is trawling?” asked Master Bob, of course, when the matter was mooted by the owner of the cutter.
“What is trawling, eh?” repeated the old sailor, humming and cogitating for a minute or so. “Let me see; ah, yes, you let down a trawl and catch your fish in it, instead of using a line or drag-net.” ”

“ Fishing begins as soon as the smacks reach the Banks. In other years all cod were caught by means of handlines, and some fish are still taken that way. The most, however, are now taken by trawls, which were introduced about 1860 and were first used by the French. A trawl consists of a line some 3,000 feet in length, to which are attached short ones about a yard long, on each of which is a hook. The short lines are placed about six feet apart, so that each trawl has about 500 hooks. Attached to each end of the line by a rope is a buoy, sometimes only an empty powder keg or a mackerel kit. ”

“ The under side of the net is made with a curved margin. The outside is guarded from chafing, when the trawl is being worked over the bottom, by pieces of old net. The meshes vary in size according to the part of the trawl. Near the mouth, they are four inches square, and in the cod, an inch and a quarter. The trawl is hauled along by a bridle, that is to say, by two ropes of about fifteen fathoms each, which are fastened to the ends of the trawl heads, and unite at a warp, one hundred and fifty fathoms long, which serves to haul the net along. ”

“ The trawl being in proper position, the warp is allowed to run out and the trawl lowered to the bottom, the vessel slowly moving on meanwhile; usually the length of warp which is below the surface in towing is a few fathoms over three times the depth of water. The art of shooting the trawl lies in causing it to alight on its runners or shoes, with the net freely trailing behind: should the net be twisted, or the trawl alight on its beam, the trawl has been shot “ foul, " and must be hauled and shot again. ”

“ The girls, Elizabeth and Edith Remington were anxious to help also.
On the way from the bungalow after breakfast, Elizabeth explained to the boys. “We can fish all morning and catch enough bait for the lobster-traps and set the herring-net to get the bait for the trawl overnight.”
28 “How many hooks are on that trawl?” asked Paul.
“About five hundred,” replied Fred. “Each one is on a short line called a ‘gangin’ which is about a foot and a half long. These gangins hang down every five or so feet along the whole length of the trawl. They have the hooks at the ends and these we have to bait.” ”

“ Two men now put off in each of these boats and anchor the trawls at convenient distances from each other, in such a way that the trawl-line, with its fringe of hooks, shall be stretched taut and at the proper depth. How long they stay down depends on the weather—five or six hours, or from evening until morning, is the usual period. Then the men go out, and taking up the anchors at one end, haul each trawl into the boat, coiling it in the bottom and taking off the hooks each captive fish as fast as they come to it. ”

“ Zoological specimens are collected in various ways. The ‘trawl’ is a wide-meshed net tied up at one end. The net’s mouth is attached above to a stout wooden beam that unites two iron runners; the lower side is a strong cable, the ground-rope, which rubs along the sea-bottom. The fish, alarmed by the ground-rope, rise up and are caught in the net, which is carried along so rapidly that escape is impossible. In using the trawl the vessel must steam quickly, and the ground trawled over must be free from rocks. ”

“ She left Hull, however, with only four men, for the boy did not join her until she had been out cruising a week, when he was sent to her in a steamer.
Life on board a smack is but a dull affair, and such excitements as it has are all against the fisherman. It is tedious work drifting for hours with the trawl overboard; but what is to be made of it when, as sometimes happens, the trawl is got aboard and the net found torn to pieces by a piece of sunken wreck or something of that kind, and all the fish gone? ”

“ No longer men with the ready money to purchase a trap bothered with the hook and line or jigger or puttered with the trawl.
With the great seines rich harvests were drawn from the icy deep, and Taylor himself on more than one occasion had gathered an even hundred quintals at one haul. Of the customary two hauls a day, this was the lucky morning haul, and with song and shout the Graywing's crews in the dories raced expectantly for the moorings of their berth. ”

“ If the signs hold good, the skipper will order the men out to set trawls, for the smell of the dead fish sometimes drives the school away.
HANDLING THE TRAWLS
The “trawls” are only an elaboration of the hand-lines. They are single lines, several hundred feet in length, with short lines and baited hooks at intervals. They are taken out by members of the crew in their dories, buoyed and anchored. It is the work of tending these trawls that takes the greatest skill and fearlessness. It is in the work of hauling and baiting the lines in all weathers that the greatest losses of life occur. ”

“ There is no doubt that trawling, unless the size of the mesh is carefully controlled, tends to remove large numbers of immature fish. Generally in ordinary beam trawling—cod, plaice, haddock, etc.—the mesh varies from 3 ins. diameter near the mouth of the net to about 11⁄4 ins. diameter at the cod end. If a much smaller mesh were used the resistance encountered by a full-sized net would be so great that it would be almost impossible to draw the net through the water. Smaller trawls of 1⁄2 in. mesh are used in shallow coastal waters for catching shrimps, small plaice and whiting. ”