63 



This port is a favourite with the Ratnagiri and Rajapur 

 fishermen, who bring their boats here regularly under contract 

 with the local fish merchants, staying from October till March. 

 The boats they use are of three sizes, but all are intended for 

 deep sea drift netting. From October to the end of December, 

 the two smaller sizes are employed, leaving harbour usually at 

 2 to 8 p.m. and returning the next day between 10 a.m. and 

 noon. The drift net used at this season is the vowri-balai, 

 having a mesh of 4| inches and made in pieces measuring 20 

 to 27 fathoms each. Usually 40 of these pieces are attached 

 together to form a fleet of nets. Principally bonito, small seer 

 and shark are taken in these nets. 



About the end of the year the smaller Ratnagiri boats 

 return home being replaced early in January by larger boats 

 with big-meshed drift nets used in deep water almost ex- 

 clusively for large sharks and rays. These Ratnagiri boats 

 are excellently built, very broad in the beam, handsome in the 

 lines, and carry a great press of sail. As onr home boats do, 

 these also lower the mast — they carry but one — upon a crutch 

 when riding to their nets. The shark drifters usually stay 

 out about three days ; occasionally as long as seven. In the 

 latter instances their catches are landed in very bad condition, 

 often crawling with maggots, the quantity of salt taken to 

 sea being inadequate to preserve the fish satisfactorily. The 

 large boats are said to cease work about the end of March or 

 beginning of April. 



The two larger boat types used by these men from the 

 north are lateen rigged and are true boats, reminding one 

 much of the general design of Danish and Nordland open 

 fishing boats. In both there is the curved and overhanging 

 stem, the sharp stern and raked stern post ; both are low in 

 the waist, and with comparatively low freeboard, in both a 

 wash-strake is fitted whenTieavily laden, and both depend on a 

 single mast and single sail. 



The smallest of the three Ratnagiri types in some respects 

 is the most interesting as it is, I believe, the highest develop- 

 ment of outrigged canoe. The basis, in common with the 

 Ceylon form, is a dug-out canoe, but on this has been raised 

 not perpendicular sides less than 18 inches apart as in the 

 Sinhalese model, but a series of strakes flaring outwards 

 considerably and producing a fairly roomy boat capable of 

 carrying a fleet of nets about half the length of that used by 

 the smaller of the two larger boats. The outrigger is boomed 

 out in the usual maimer, and the boat carries a sail of the same 

 type as her larger sisters. 



