The Concrete Deck 



Gut to the south and the Viking Bank in the north, and returning 

 promptly with a small catch covered in its own weight of ice . And 

 just because they were so unseaworthy, because they had to come 

 back to port after such a short time at sea, their fish was better 

 preserved and sold for higher prices than the catches of the more 

 efficient long-distance trawlers of other ports, like Hull and Fleet- 

 wood. It was almost as though a premium had been put upon a 

 niggardly lack of any economic imagination. At least, for a time. 

 In the long run, the diesel would win. The rust slums would rot 

 out and the richer resources of the far north would leave the own- 

 ers of the scratchers impoverished. But, in the late forties, when 

 Jan first saw them, these ancient sea-bitten junk heaps were still 

 helping to make Aberdeen a prosperous city. 



Though their basic design was as good as could have been ex- 

 pected, the wear and tear of decades of exhausting travel had re- 

 duced them to unsafe contraptions that would have been unecon- 

 omic had it not been for the post-war plenty of fish im the North 

 Sea. They were too slow, to begin with, and their ancient reli- 

 able engines were gluttons for coal. Some of the oldest of them 

 were not scratchers. Much more ambitious, they made long- 

 distance trips to the Faroes, and even to Iceland. In these cases, 

 it became necessary to use a part of the fish-room as an ancillary 

 bunker. The coal deposited there was burned during the trip out 

 so that, by the time the first haul came on deck, the hold was 

 empty and could be washed down before any fish were stowed in 

 it. Their lack of speed, however, affected their towing capacity 

 and definitely restricted their success at some specialised jobs such 

 as the herring trawling that had been practised by most European 

 countries, particularly Germany, and which underwent a great 

 expansion during Jan's years at sea. And yet, at that time, there 

 were few owners or skippers willing to forgo coal and take to 

 diesel. The simplicity of steam, the ease with which its power 

 could be diverted to the trawl winch, and the reserves of energy 

 that are always associated with a coal-burning engine, these factors 

 hid the revolution in trawler design from the Aberdeen industry 



49 



