Scottish east coast fishery
The Scottish east coast fishery spanned the Viking period to the present day. Over this time, the fishery has been for both white fish and herring. The 18th century saw some Scottish fishermen emulate the Dutch method of fishing for herring but the majority stuck to fishing with line and bait.
The 19th century saw the greatest growth in sea fishing on the Scottish east coast. In the early years of that century the boats were very small, made of wood and were either one or two masted. They were not expensive to build and small repairs were carried out by the fishermen themselves. These early boats needed to be light so they could be dragged up the beaches.
The fishermen did not venture far from the shore as these boats were undecked and unstable under stormy conditions. In 1848, a violent storm hit the country and 124 boats were sunk, and 100 fishermen lost their lives. The government appointed Captain John Washington (the Washington Report) to enquire into the disaster and to make recommendations. He pointed out that the boats were too small and being without decks prone to water inundation. However, not all of the fishermen were happy about larger decked boats. They felt that heavier boats would be harder to row and decks would make it easier for men to be washed overboard. Also beaching the boats would be impossible. But some fishermen felt that the decked boats was a good idea. They realised that the boats could fish further from the shore and would be better in storm conditions. However larger boats could hold more fish and so profits would be greater. The need for these larger boats spurred on the building of harbours all along the east coast, in the 1850s and 1860s.
The first decked boat was built in Eyemouth in 1856 and soon this became the norm for the Scottish fishing fleet. These sail boats were of three main types: Skaffies, Fifies and Zulus. Common to all three types were the lugsale, hence their name - ‘luggers’.
Fishing Boat Development
The Scandinavian Influence
The Norsemen came to Scotland from the 8th to 13th centuries either raiding or colonising. They were skilled seamen and boat builders and their boat designs depended on their needs. Trading vessels were wide to allow large cargo storage while raiding boats were long and narrow and very fast. They all used the clinker fashion of planking, i.e. the planks overlapped one another. Viking settlers in the Northern Isles, Western Isles and on the mainland had fish as a large part of their diet. Excavations of Viking sites in Orkney and Shetland have found middens (kitchen waste areas) containing vast quantities of fish bones. These bones were mainly of cod, saithe and ling but herring, haddock and whiting bones were also found indicating that the fish were caught in open sea and not from the sea shore. The fishing boats used for fishing were scaled down versions of their cargo boats. The Scandinavian influence impacted on the country long after the Viking period came to an end. Yoles from the Orkney island of Stroma were built in the same way as the Norse boats. Early Scottish boat builders copied the Scandinavian designs with their clinker planking and characteristic sharp stems and sterns.
The Herring Buss
In the 18th century, large scale fishing for herring around the British Isles was almost entirely carried out by the Dutch. At the time, Scottish fishermen were using small sailboats fishing mainly for white fish using baited lines. The British government was concerned that this huge resource was not benefiting the local economies and hence the population as a whole. Societies were formed to encourage the development of the British fishery. This fishery was based on the methods of the Dutch and used the Dutch terminology. The boats were called busses and were very large. They lay overnight with the nets set to catch herring. The nets were hauled by hand in the morning and the herring were salted and placed in barrels. The barrels were transferred to small boats called jagers which were tenders to the busses. These boats took the fish to the markets. The industry was valuable and often the fishing fleets came under attack by French and Spanish privateers. Armed ships were used, therefore, to accompany and defend the fishing fleets.
The Skaffie
From the beginning of the 19th Century a class of boat called the Skaffie appeared. These were favoured mainly in the Moray Firth region. The early skaffie boats were small with rounded stems and raked sterns. They were two-masted with a tall dipping lugsail and a mizzen sail. Their short keel gave them good manoeuvrability in good weather, but they tended to be unstable in bad weather. They were usually crewed by around six people. Above all, though, they were light enough to be hauled up on to the beaches. The boats were un-decked and provided no shelter for the crew. Because of the vulnerability of the boats, they stayed only a few miles out to sea in full view of the land. These boats were gradually built bigger and could be around 42 feet long, and partially decked. This came about because the harbours that were constructed from the mid to late19th century meant that the boats no longer needed to be beached. Skaffies were not built in any great numbers after 1900.
The Fifie
The 'Fifie' then became the predominant fishing boat on the Scottish east coast. They were used from the 1850s until well into the 20th Century. Fifies had a vertical stem and stern with a broad beam, which made them very stable. Their long keel was a disadvantage especially manoeuvring in confined spaces. These boats were two masted with a main dipping lugsail and a mizzen sail. The masts were set quite far forward and aft to release a good working space.
Fifies built from 1860 onwards were all decked and from 1870s onwards the bigger boats were built with carvel planking, i.e. the planks were laid edge to edge instead of the overlapping clinker style of previous boats. Some boats were now being built up to about 70 feet in length and were very fast.
The Zulu
In 1879, Lossiemouth fisherman, William ‘Dad’ Campbell came up with a radical design for his new boat. It had the vertical stem of the Fifie and the steeply raked stern of the Skaffie and he called this boat Nonesuch, registration number INS 2118. She was relatively small, 52ft overall with a 39ft keel length. The Nonesuch had her registration closed on the 12 January, 1901 after having been broken up. The Zulu War raging in South Africa at the time gave the name to this new class of boat.
The Zulu boats were built to the carvel method of planking which was much stronger than the clinker system. The shape of the Zulus gave the boats a long deck but a shorter keel which greatly improved their manoeuvrability. Zulus were two masted boats and carried three sails - fore, mizzen and jib. The sails were very heavy and difficult to haul and the masts had to be very long and strong. Masts could be 60 feet tall on boats of 80 feet in length. Their design produced very fast boats that became invaluable to herring fishing fleets. They got to the fishing grounds quickly and returned swiftly with the catch. Because of these qualities, the Zulus rapidly became very popular in Lossiemouth itself, and then very quickly along the entire east coast. As the 20th century approached, steam capstans were introduced and this made the hauling of the sails and nets much easier for the crews. One of the best of those were those capstans patented and built by MacDonald Brothers of Portsoy, in 1908.
The Steam Boat
The earliest steam powered fishing boats first appeared in the 1890s and used the trawl system of fishing as well as lines and drift nets. These were large boats, usually 80-90 feet in length with a beam of around 20 feet. They weighed 40-50 tons and travelled at 9-11 knots. The first steam boats were made of wood, but steel hulls were soon introduced and were divided into watertight compartments. They were well designed for the crew with a large building that contained the wheelhouse and the deckhouse. The boats built in the 20th century only had a mizzen sail, which was used to help steady the boat when its nets were out. The main function of the mast was now as a crane for lifting the catch ashore. They also had a steam capstan on the foredeck near the mast for hauling nets. The boats had narrow, high funnels so that the steam and thick coal smoke was released high above the deck and away from the fishermen. These funnels were nicknamed woodbines because they looked like the popular brand of cigarette. These boats had a crew of twelve made up of a skipper, driver, fireman (to look after the boiler) and nine deck hands.
Steam fishing boats had many advantages. They were usually about 20ft longer than the sailing vessels so they could carry more nets and catch more fish. This was important as the market was growing quickly at the beginning of the 20th century. They could travel faster and further and with greater freedom from weather, wind and tide. Because less time was spent travelling to and from the fishing grounds, more time could be spent fishing. The steam drifters also gained the highest prices for their fish as they could return quickly to harbour with their fresh catch. The main disadvantage of the steam boats, though, was their high operating costs. Their engines were mechanically inefficient and took up much space while fuel and fitting out costs were very high. Before the First World War, building costs were between £3000 and £4000, at least three times the cost of the sail boats. To cover these high costs, they needed to fish for longer seasons. The higher expenses meant that more steam drifters were company owned or jointly owned. As the herring fishing industry declined, steam boats became too expensive.
The Seine Netter
Petrol and paraffin engines began to be used in 1906. At first, they were mainly fitted to smaller boats of between 18 and 30 feet in length and they provided auxiliary power to assist the sails. However, as diesel engines became more powerful, the sails were replaced all together and the engines were fitted in larger and larger boats. Motor engines were relatively cheap, making them affordable to individual Fishermen. Early engines cost less than £100 and fuel costs were low. These boats also needed less maintenance than steam vessels. The two most popular engine brands were the Gardiner and Kelvin engines. The compact engines meant they could be fitted to existing sailing drifters such as Fifies and Zulus. The traditional Fifie style was better suited to the installation of a motor, which led to the custom building of a number of modified Fifie design boats with motors.
In 1920, though, the government changed the rules by removing the guaranteed price from the herring and prices dropped dramatically. In 1921, some Lossiemouth skippers noticed that the Danish seine net boats were landing huge quantities of plaice and other white fish at the English east coast ports. Their interest resulted in a few buying some seine nets and winches and trying this form of fishing. As they perfected seine net fishing, more of the Lossiemouth fleet converted to seine net. But boat design for this type of fishing was still proving to be an obstacle. That, and the cost of cost of the majority steam boats prompted a new style of fishing boat. John Campbell, nephew of William Campbell who designed the first Zulu boat built a wooden boat that resembled, to some extent, the 'Fifie' but had a broad beam. His boat, the 'Marigold', did very well and over a short period the entire fleet (the first in Scotland) converted to the seine net. Other east coast ports followed on very quickly.
Ancillary Industries
- Fish Curers
- Coopers
- Sale Makers
- Fish Salesmen and Ship Chandlers