Shetland Line
Boats
Among the Shetland Islands small boats
of the Norwegian model are everywhere used, both for
inshore fishing and for ferrying across sounds and firths
; and, until the last quarter of the century, larger
boats of the same build were alone used in the long line
and the herring fisheries.
The small line boats run from 10 feet
of keel upwards, some of the larger haddock boats
measuring about 12 feet keel. Sexerns (or six-oared
boats) run from 20 to 23 feet. All these boats, however,
are much larger than appears from these figures, as both
stems are greatly raked.
They are also high at the bows and
quarters which helps to keep them dry in a seaway. They
are built of light materials, and have very few timbers.
Being so light in the frame, they are buoyant and lively,
and under skilful handling will come through a good deal
of rough weather. They must, however, be kept end on to a
heavy sea ; their low waist makes them dangerous in a
broadside sea. Where a large herring-boat or a cod smack
would be 'laid to' under low sail, Shetland fishermen
would consider it safer to keep a sexern under oars,
heading straight through the sea.
DUNDEE WHALEBOAT
At least one case is on record of a
Shetland crew being thus driven to Norway in a six-oared
boat, and after they had been given up for lost, they
returned home in safety. More remarkable still was the
case of two girls from Unst who were blown out to sea
when trying to cross a sound with a small boat loaded
with peats. They, too, managed to keep their frail craft
afloat till they reached Norway. One was eventually sent
home ; the other accepted an offer of marriage from a
young Norwegian, and remained.
The Shetland sexern is not unlike an
ordinary lifeboat in appearance, or the Dundee whaler,
and is a survival of the model of the old Norse Viking
longship. A good many of these boats are still used in
the long line fishing at what are locally known as 'haaf'
stations, but they are being fast supplanted by large
herring-boats from Aberdeenshire. These haaf stations are
harbours within easy reach of the deep-sea fishing banks,
and generally situated near some outlying
point.
The local Shetland rig was a
square-shaped lugsail, of undoubted Norse origin, a grand
sail for running free.
SHETLAND SEXERN
This is to a great extent being
abandoned in favour of a lug and jib similar to that used
in the Firth of Clyde, the tack of the lug being fixed at
the mast. Beating up through narrow channels in cold,
wintry weather, fishermen find the latter rig a great
advantage, as they have merely to shift the sheets
instead of dipping or lowering the sail every tack.
*1*
*1* The smaller boats are built for about l0s. a foot
of keel; so with sail complete a 12-foot boat would
not cost much more than £7.
A sexern of 21 feet keel would cost at
present £21 for hull and spars ; or with sails and
rigging, not more than £30. A sexern of 23 feet
keel, being fuller built and higher in the wood, would
cost about £40 for hull, sails, rigging, and outfit.
Very few sexerns are now being built, and there is a
probability that this type of boat may become
obsolete.
Norway-built boats used to be imported
regularly into Shetland, especially the smaller sizes. To
save space in the vessels, they were usually brought
across in sections, and put together after they were
landed. Ready-made oars were also imported in
considerable quantities. Small boats are still
occasionally brought over, along with cargoes of timber.
As already remarked in a former chapter, these boats are
generally built with only three broad planks, whereas a
similar boat built in Shetland would have twice as many.
As a consequence, these Norwegian boats are very sharp in
the build, and have not sufficient bearing to give them
stability under sail, or to carry weight. They are easily
pulled, however, and in fine weather are smart enough
little boats, but they require very careful
handling.
For the cod fishing, with hand lines,
at Faroe, Rockall, and Iceland, large deep-sea smacks are
used. They are from fifty to ninety tons register, carry
from twelve to sixteen hands, and are in all respects
similar to the Grimsby fishing smacks, which are dandy or
ketch rigged. In fact, the Shetland vessels are generally
bought second-hand from that port.
The inhabitants of the Orkney Islands,
though favourably situated, have not given the same
attention to the fishing as the Shetlanders have done.
The explanation probably is that the land is better in
Orkney than in Shetland, and it is much easier to make a
living ashore. The Shetland crofter could not, as a rule,
make a living off his land ; hence the unanimity with
which the young men take to a seafaring life.
The only type of boat in Orkney that
appears to merit special notice is a small boat used for
crossing the sounds and for inshore fishing. The model is
quite distinct from the Shetland or Norwegian boat, being
very broad in proportion, and consequently very steady
under sail. The frame, too, is much stronger than that of
the Shetland boat. The sprit rig is generally preferred
with two masts and sails, and this was at one time a
great favourite not only in Scottish waters, but in those
of the Humber, the Mersey and the Lincolnshire Fens. *1*
This rig was very common for small open craft during the
early part of the nineteenth century.
ORKNEY SKIFF
The standing lug has also been used in
the combination of main and fore masts, a light boom
being fitted to the mainsail. Competent judges assert
that the most skilful boatmen they have seen for handling
small boats under sail are the men that have ferried them
across the Pentland Firth and the sounds among the Orkney
Islands. Fifteen feet of keel may be taken as the average
length of this class of small boat. Orkney herring-boats,
as already stated, are of the Fifie model, and either lug
or smack rigged. Large smacks used to be sent to the
Faroe and Iceland fishing, but none have been owned in
Orkney recently, though English smacks and Aberdeen
trawlers occasionally land their fish in
Orkney.
*1* See pp. 133,
134,
230.
Firth of Clyde Skiffs
The favourite boat in the outer part
of the Firth of Clyde and Loch Fyne is a skiff known as
the Nabby, one of the prettiest, smartest, and handiest
forms of sea boat to be found.
WEST COAST NABBY
For herring and great line fishings,
these boats run from 24 to 28 feet of keel ; but as the
stern-post is a good deal raked, the length over all is
usually from 82 to 34 feet. The boat is open, with the
exception of a small fore-deck, which gives rather
limited cabin accommodation to the crew of three or four
men.
The build may be either clinker or
carvel. One very noticeable feature about the model of
this boat is the great disproportion between the draught
of water forward and aft. A Nabby draws from 1 to 2 feet
forward, and from 3-1/2 to 6 feet aft. The rig is a lug
and jib, and occasionally a mizen is carried in
summer.
WEST COAST SKIFF, WITH MIZEN
The sails do not require to be shifted
in staying, as the tack is fixed at the mast, which is
supported by single stays. *1* The Nabby bears some
resemblance to the Cornish model, and more still to the
Zulu of the east coast, only there is less rake on the
Nabby's stern-post, and much more rake on its
mast.
*1* A good carvel-built Nabby of, say, 27 ft.
keel, would cost at least £100 from the
carpenter; and sails and other outfit would bring the
price up to £120 or £130.
The planking used is yellow pine
(recently Oregon pine has been introduced), whereas on
the east coast of Scotland larch planks are alone used in
boat-building.
The Nabby build and rig combine to
make a very smart, manageable boat. Four men can work
'great lines' with this boat as long as it is safe to
remain at sea. Four men also constitute a boat's crew for
herring. Seine trawling boats, however, work in pairs at
this fishing. For drift-net fishing three men are a
sufficient crew.
LOCH
FYNE SKIFF
It is interesting to compare these
figures with the crew required by an east coast boat of
similar size. No such boat would be worked at line
fishing on the east coast by less than five, and
sometimes six, of a crew, and the requirements for
herring fishing would be similarly disproportionate. Thus
the earnings of the Nabby fall to
be divided into fewer shares than the east coast
boats.
It is of interest to note that the
fishermen of Dunure village, near Ayr, have taken to
building their own boats. During recent years several
finely modelled skiffs of about 25 feet keel have been
added to the local fleet, all these boats having been
built and fitted out by their owners with the occasional
help of their neighbours.
At Dunure and Maidens many of the
fishermen prefer square-sterned skiffs, both for herring,
great line, and small line fishings. *1*
These boats, as is generally the case
inside Turnberry Point, are narrower, lower in the wood,
and generally finer in the model than the skiffs in use
about Girvan, Campbeltown, and Tarbert on Loch Fyne. The
reason is obvious. Girvan fishermen work their long lines
in the entrance to the Firth, and out halfway across the
Channel, in winter and early spring, and this can only be
done with an able, comfortable boat. With suitable tides
it is quite a common thing to get from twenty to forty
cwt. of fish at a single haul in the Channel, and with
this weight a small-sized Nabby would be left with too
little freeboard in rough weather. The Campbeltown
fishermen, again, work most at herring seine trawling ;
some of them do nothing else all the year round. This is
a mode of fishing with more than the usual elements of
uncertainty ; a crew may go for weeks and earn nothing,
or they may fill several pairs of skiffs with one haul of
their net. It thus becomes a matter of the first
importance that their own pair of Nabbies shall be able
to carry full share of the herrings they have been
fortunate enough to catch, so the tendency is to increase
the size and carrying capacity of these so-called
trawling skiffs.
*1* The dimensions are:
|
Length of keel;
|
breadth of beam;
|
and depth.
|
(1)
|
25 ft.
|
9 ft. 4 inches
|
5 ft. 7 inches
|
(2)
|
27 ft.
|
9 ft. 4 inches
|
5 ft. 6 inches
|
The flounder fishermen use their
skiffs most at the summer drift-net fishing. As they are
a few miles from the nearest railway station, the
question of catching the market train is always a burning
one ; hence speed in light weather is the first requisite
there. and large sails are the rule. *1*
The larger Nabby as now modelled is of
comparatively recent date: fishermen say its introduction
only dates back twenty-five or thirty years. Before that
time, small smacks, with broad square sterns and pretty
large draught of water aft not unlike the present
Fleetwood and Maryport shrimpers, were mostly employed in
the herring fishing in Loch Fyne, and also in the other
lochs up the west coast, as, for instance, in Gairloch
and Loch Broom.
In the Clyde these smacks have been
gradually discarded in favour of the Nabby for several
reasons. Their rigging, boom, gaff, etc., was found to be
cumbrous at herring fishing in so small a vessel: while
in heavy weather the gaff, sagging over the lee side,
causes the craft to labour harder than the lugsail yard
does. The Nabby, therefore, appears to be an evolution
from the smack rig and from the old small line boats used
in this Firth, retaining the best point in the rig and
model of each.
*1* For a Nabby of 24 or 25 ft. keel the following
would be a fair average:
Luff (or weather rope), from 22 to 23 ft.; leach,
about at 28 or 29 ft.; and sole (or foot), from 20 to
22 ft. The large jib contains about 28 yards of
cotton, 28 inches broad. The mast is generally the
same length as the boat is over stems.
This is another interesting instance
of the supplanting of the smack rig by the lugsail ; of a
return to rig which, as elsewhere remarked, is among the
oldest in the world, and is at the same time among the
most difficult to cut, set, and handle with real
efficiency.
CLYDE SKIFF
The small line boats on the Ayrshire
coast are long, low, narrow skiffs, with lug and jib.
There is no great disparity between the draught of water
aft and forward, hence the boat lacks the Nabby's
stability under sail, but 'pulls' well. *1*
*1* Ordinary dimensions are :
Length over
all;
|
length of keel;
|
breadth of
beam;
|
and depth.
|
22 to 23 ft.
|
20 ft.
|
5 ft. 6 in.
|
2 ft. 6 in.
|
Price to carpenter about £12 or
£13; and sails, lug and two jibs, about
£2 more.
|
Boats used in the gill net-fishing for cod and saithe
in spring, and in the turbot net-fishing in summer are
a little larger every way. An average size: Length of
keel, 22 ft., and over all 25 ft., breadth of beam, 7
ft., and depth inside, 3 ft. A boat of this size would
cost about £20 from the builder, and sails and
other outfit would amount to about £30 more.
These smaller boats are all
clinker-built, and they have no decks.
A special size of boat is required for
the cod and turbot nets, because the Nabby would be too
heavy for the strength of net, and the line skiff would
he too small to stow the nets comfortably. Occasionally
in summer small line boats are used for turbot net
fishing. Turbot nets are set in 'trains' of ten to
fifteen along the bottom, on which they rest. Cork floats
buoy the nipper rope upwards for about a yard. As herring
drift net fishing is usually going on in the vicinity, no
buoys are used, and the fisher men consequently have to
keep careful landmarks, and 'grapple' for their turbot
nets daily.
Ballantrae, Stranraer, and
Portpatrick
Proceeding outwards towards the
channels, we find some differences in the models of
boats. At Ballantrae, for instance, the larger Nabbies
cannot be introduced because there is no proper harbour,
and the fishermen have to launch and beach their boats
daily. A skiff of about 22 feet keel, therefore (a
cod-net boat in fact), has to do duty at all branches of
the cod and herring fishings. Small lines are very little
used at Ballantrae ; and for lobster fishing, as
elsewhere, a much smaller boat is kept.
Portpatrick fishermen hardly engage in
the herring fishing at all, their principal occupation
being long lint fishing for cod during the winter and
spring, and a few months at small line fishing in summer.
Working out into the channel, where the tides are very
strong, they have to encounter a very dangerous, choppy
sea. It is very noticeable that surroundings and
conditions similar to those in the Pentland Firth appear
to have evolved a boat almost identical with that used
among the Orkney Islands and on the Caithness coast, and
altogether different from any line-boat inside the Firth
of Clyde.
The principal feature of this model
is, of course its great proportionate breadth of beam:
the bows and quarters are also full. The rig consists of
two lugsails, like that of the Pentland Firth boats,
which also carry two sails, though often spritsails.
*1*
PORTPATRICK LINE
BOAT
Some
of the older Stranraer yawls are similar in model to the
Portpatrick boats, but the last additions to the fleet
have, curiously enough, and by some process of evolution
which it is difficult to explain, been exact miniatures
of the Moray Firth Zulu. The rig is the usual Firth of
Clyde rig, a lugsail and jib, with the mast much raked.
*2* These Stranraer Zulus (I do not think this name is
used there, however) retain the Nabby's short forefoot
and long heel, but above water they are perfect
miniatures of the east coast Zulu.
A number of luggers of the Manx build
and rig used to be owned at Campbeltown and other ports
on the west of Scotland. They were used at the Irish
mackerel and herring fishings in spring and early summer,
and then at the east coast herring fishing in July and
August. Very few are now owned in these waters, fishermen
having found the Nabbies more profitable.
*1* The dimensions of the boats in the
accompanying sketch are :
16 ft. keel, 7 ft. beam, and 2-1/2 ft. deep inside.
The 'shell' costs £10 with
£4 additional for sails,
spars, and oars.
*2* One of these boats measured 16 to 17 ft. keel,
21 ft. over stems, 6 ft. beam,
2-1/2 ft. inside, and 2 tons register.
Annan Trawling Smacks *1*
The principal fishing in the upper
Solway is trawling for flounders in winter, and for
shrimps and prawns in spring and summer. A neat little
smack is used, the only craft of its kind in Scotland, so
far as I am aware. With the exception of a narrow open
hatchway with very high 'commons,' these boats are
full-decked. The decks and high commons are necessary by
reason of the dangerous sea that rises in the Solway with
high winds and strong tides. The average draught of water
is from three to four feet aft.
Two men form a crew for winter
fishing, but at the shrimp fishing, where the net is
lighter and weather better, the skipper often works
alone, or with the help of a boy.
The Annan fishermen mostly make their
own sails, as they also make their own trawl-nets. The
first trawl fishermen came to Annan from Morecambe Bay
some fifty years ago, and they introduced these
trawl-boats ; but both model and rig have been greatly
improved since. Most of these smacks are now
carvel-built.
*1* The average size is 23 ft. keel, and 30 ft. over
all; 9 to 9-1/2 ft. beam; 4 ft. deep inside; and 5
tons register. The average draught of water is from
3-1/2 to 4 ft. aft; the average draught forward about
2 ft. Cost, about £45 to the carpenter, or with
sails and rigging complete, about
£80.
Stornoway Yawls
The boats in which Lewis men worked
long lines eighteen or twenty years ago have been a good
deal superseded by Fifies and Zulus, but a few are still
in use, though probably doomed to extinction.
This Lewis boat had a resemblance to
the Pentland Firth yawl, but was much larger, say 20 to
25 feet keel, and 5 or 6 feet longer over sterns, and
broad in the beam and quarters, both stems, especially
the stern-post, being raked. The sails used were broad,
low lugs. Five or six men formed the crew, and oars were
a good deal used when working lines. East coast fishermen
used to speak contemptuously of them as 'pikers.' They
were quite open, and clinker-built.