Captain Collins became interested in an improved 

 sloop-smack and tried to introduce such a boat on 

 the Pacific coast in 1893-94 but was apparently 

 imsuccessful. On the Florida and Gulf coasts the 

 smack, as would be expected, was very popular. 



The small sailing craft used in the fisheries were 

 often crude. They were built to meet the pocket- 

 book of the owner and some fisheries were not very 

 profitable; but on the whole, they were well designed 

 and soundly built for the fishery they were employed 

 in. Generally, the hull forms had been carefully 

 developed and many of the boats were graceful and 

 handsome as well as efficient. Boats that worked 

 in exposed waters — as in the case of the Maine 

 Friendship sloop or the Quoddy boat, the Block 

 Island boat of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the 

 Mackinaw boat of the Great Lakes, and the double- 

 ended sloops of the Pacific Northwest — were care- 

 fully designed and fitted to produce seaworthy and 

 safe craft. 



Steam had little part in the American small-boat 

 fishery. A few steam launches were employed in 

 the 1890's on the Carolina Sounds and on the Great 

 Lakes, but generally the boats were much too ex- 

 pensive to be employed profitably in the small-boat 

 fisheries. This was also true of the naptha launch. 

 But with the introduction of the small gasoline engine, 

 the increase in the number of motorboats in the 

 fisheries became very marked, and after about 1906 



the launch began to drive the sailing boat from 

 the field. The first fishing launches were a modifi- 

 cation of the dory into a douijle-ended, flat-bottom 

 motorboat, or a double-ended caravel-planked hull 

 much like a Maine peapod was used. The engines 

 were commonly single-cylinder motors of 2 to 12 

 horsepower, the most popular class of engine being 

 in the 5 to 10 horsepower range. Fantail launches 

 like the old steam launches were also used, and motors 

 were fitted to some sailing hulls successfully; the 

 Maine Hampton boat and some sharpies were so 

 altered. A racing launch was the model of the 

 V-bottom fishing launches built on the Chesapeake. 

 By 1914 the sailing fishing lioat was obsolete and 

 fishing launches of great power and high speed were 

 being built, usually following pleasure boats in model 

 and powering. Gradually the boats became more 

 powerful, and when automobile engines could be 

 cheaply purchased from wrecked cars or as rebuilt 

 motors, the marine gasoline engine was largely 

 replaced by automobile and truck engines in most 

 fishing centers. 



The types of fishing launches are far less in number 

 than were sailing types, and fisheries experts believe 

 that many modern motor fishing boats are ill-suited 

 to their local conditions. Seaworthiness has also 

 decreased and the trend toward inefficient hulls 

 and unseaworthy design is as obvious abroad as it 

 is in the LTnited States. The recognition of this will 

 perhaps lead in time to their improvement. 



Catalog of the Collection — Fishing Craft 



FISHING SCHOONER, late 18th century 

 Rigged Model, usnm 76243 



This model was reconstructed with the intention 

 of representing an American fishing schooner of the 

 18th centvn-y and was apparently based on paintings, 

 dating from the last quarter of that century, found at 

 Marblehead, Massachusetts. While the model is 

 approximately correct as to spar proportion and rig- 

 ging, deck arrangement, and general above-waterline 

 appearance, profile, the hull form is too full and 

 tubby to represent a fishing schooner of the troubled 

 years 1740-1815, when swiftness under sail was 

 necessary. Contemporary references to Marblehead 

 fishing schooners of this period indicate that speed 

 was a common characteristic of the type and is often 



inferred by their emplo)ment. The Boston Gazette for 

 January 1, 1770, advertises: 



The Hull or Body of a Fishing Schooner, a prime sailor 

 with a half-Deck, about seven years old, Burthen about 58 

 Tons, together with her Masts, Booms and Bowsprit, Cables, 

 Anchors, Boat, Sails and Rigging, with all Appurtenances 

 thereunto belonging, as she now lays in the Harbour of 

 Gloucester. 



That others were "prime sailors" is indicated by 

 Washington's use of Marblehead fishing schooners 

 as sea raiders early in the Revolution. 



Some Marblehead schooners of the last half of the 

 18th centiu'y had a very low bulwark on the main 

 deck and only the quarterdeck was used as a fishing 

 deck, it having high protective bulwarks; but most of 



178 



