Each boat carries from 70 to 80 nets. The nets are approximately 1 in. mesh. Each net is essentially a long rectangular curtain, hanging vertically in the water. Its upper edge, which is about 55 yds. long, is buoyed up by about 80 to 84 corks distributed equidistantly along it from end to end. The net is about 6 yds. wide. Each net hangs with its upper edge about 2 fathoms below the surface of the water, being attached at each corner to two pellets or bladders, resembling large footballs, and serving as floats.
Fishing nets and sails are often coated with warm gelatine, and then immersed in a strong solution of tannin. This renders the gelatine insoluble and preserves the nets against the attacks of destructive organisms.
Fig. 12
HERRING DRIFTER
When fishing, the boat takes up a position stern on to the tide. The nets are paid out over the bow and connected up in line, and carried by the tide till they form one long line, one end of which is attached to the drifter. The position of the nets is indicated by the line of bladder floats.
The fish swim against the nets, push their heads through, and then, owing to their gill openings, find that they cannot withdraw their heads, and in this way are caught in enormous numbers. Generally, fishing goes on all night, and in the morning the nets are hauled in, and, together with the attached fish, are thrown into the hold situated amidships. The drifters then return with all possible speed to the fish wharf. While the boats are returning to port, the men draw the nets from the hold and shake them free from any entangled fish. When the drifter reaches port, she moors alongside the fish wharf, bow on, and unloads her cargo of fish, using her derrick mast. The fish are unloaded in a round basket which is stamped by the Fishery Board’s officer as holding a quarter of a “cran.” The word “cran” is derived from the “crown” branded by the Fishery Board’s officer on each of the two wooden shafts in the basket.
The cran is the measure which is universally used in the trade. At Yarmouth and Lowestoft originally herrings were counted out and sold by the “last.” A cran averages from 900 to 1,000 herrings and weighs approximately 3 cwts. A “last” equals ten crans, and originally consisted of 13,200 herrings, counted out. This method, of course, was too slow and has now been abandoned.
