“Not unless it’s before and after, or behind.”
“It ain’t no before and no after; it’s fore-and-aft,” growled Josh.
“He’s quite right, Josh,” said Will, taking his new friend’s side; “fore means before, or forward, and aft means after, or behind.”
“Oh! very well; have it your own way,” said Josh, putting a pellet of tobacco in his mouth. “I call it fore-and-aft.”
“That’s right too, Josh. Look here, sir, we call the rig of a boat or ship fore-and-aft when the sails are flat, like they are in a cutter or sloop or schooner. When I say flat I mean stretching from the front of the vessel to the stern; and we call it square-rigged when the sails are put across.”
“Then there’s lug-sails like them,” said Josh, pointing to some fishing-boats, whose brown sails stood out against the amber sky; “and there’s lots of other rigs as well.”
“Yes; but what’s a trawler?” cried Dick.
“It’s a fore-and-aft rigged boat that trawls,” said Will. “She has a great net like a big night-cap stretched over on a spar, which we call a trawl-beam, and this is lowered down, and as the boat sails it is dragged along the bottom, and catches soles, and turbot, and plaice and sometimes john-dory, and gurnet, and brill. They like sandy banks, such as this is; and if there were no rocks the trawler would soon sweep this clean.”
“On’y, they can’t run their trawl along here a-cause o’ the rocks,” said Josh.
“Which would catch the net, and they’d p’r’aps lose it.”