“What is the size of the boats employed in carrying fish from the smacks to the steam cutters?”
“Well, their length’ll be about 20 ft., breadth 6 ft., and depth 3 ft.”
“And these boats the men have to launch in heavy weather?”
“Yes, often in weather that may be called heavy. The risk is increased by the peculiar circumstances under which the men are placed whilst working at the boxing system; for you’ll hear again and again of their shoving the whole of a night’s catch into the boat at once, in order to secure a quick despatch and obtain the earliest possible market.”
“How is the Dogger Bank relished as a fishing ground?”
“Well,” he replied, “it passes by the name of ‘The Cemetery’ among us. In the winter time, I don’t suppose there’s a more dangerous place in the world. With strong winds from the N.E., veering to the N.W., there come the heavy seas from the Atlantic—if you can call the ocean to the norrards of the North Sea by that name—which strike the rising ground of the bank and turn the water into a boiling caldron. It was there where the smacks went down. The seas just coiled over and fairly broke upon ’em, smothering ’em, smashing in their decks, stamping ’em out as you might grind a beetle out of sight with your heel.”
“Are your smacks supplied with barometers? I mean by that, have they any means of knowing when to expect foul weather?”
“No, sir; they’re not generally supplied. One firm owning about twenty sail of vessels, who always work on the single-boat system in winter, provide their vessels with barometers. I should think they must be very useful instruments,” said he, speaking as though he had never been shipmates with one; “and I may here add that none of those twenty vessels alluded to were lost. The majority of us smacksmen have nothing to tell the weather by except practical experience.”
“But couldn’t the admiral signal—couldn’t he, at least, be furnished with a barometer?”
“No doubt,” he replied. “But smacks get scattered, and it would be best for each master to understand the weather for himself. The admiral is more for rallying of us. He has his job cut out for him after a storm. His general scheme is to fall in with a steam carrier, and then sail to the ground from which he’s been driven by the gale, expecting the rest of the fleet to do likewise; but it often happens that many days pass before they’re able to get together, and this brings heavy losses among the fishermen, who, having no ice, are forced to find the admiral before they can start fishing afresh.”