THE “KWEE” AND THE “HOEKERBUIS”.
The dimensions of the “bushes” must have increased most at the end of the XVIIIth or beginning of the XIXth century; the “statie” was then suppressed and the fish tank appeared. The boats supplied with this tank were called Kwee according to HOOGENDIJK (p. 59). The “bush” proper which was used exclusively for the herring fishery, had no fish tank.
The “bush” which had a howker rig was also called a Hoekerbuis. What HOOGENDIJK tells about the origin of the howker, in his interesting book on the “Grootvisscherij”, does not seem to be wholly exact. According to him (p. 59) the “howker” is said to be descended from the “Hoekerbuis” by the suppression of the “statie”. But, according to WITSEN and VAN YK, the howkers have existed from the earliest times and, hence, long before the appearance of the “Hoekerbuis”.
The “howker” is met with as a contemporary of the “bush” from which it differs quite a good deal in shape; the placing of the “howker” rig on the “bush” proves that the former vessel was already in existence in the time of the latter.