ll-i NORTH SEA INVESTIGATIONS. 



8. Ihdl 

 THE ADOrTION OF THE OTTER TRAWL IN STEAM TRAWLING. 



"When I was at Scarborough and Hull, last summer, a remarkable 

 revolution was taking place in the steam trawling industry ; the old- 

 fashioned beam-trawl, previously in universal use, was being rapidly 

 discarded and replaced by a beamless trawl constructed on the 

 principle of the otter trawl, used formerly only by yachtsmen and 

 amateurs, or for scientific purposes. The innovation was due to the 

 ingenuity and enterprise of Air. Scott, son of the manager of the General 

 Steam Fishing Company, of Granton, on the Firth of Forth. The 

 modification of the otter trawl, which Mr. Scott invented, will be under- 

 stood from the following description, and the figures which accompany 

 it, and which are reproduced from those circulated by the inventor's 

 firm. The boards (Figs. 1 and 2) are each 10 feet long by 4 A feet broad, 

 shod with iron, and very thick and heavy. In the centre of the hinder 

 edge of the board is fixed an iron ring, to which the ends of both the 

 head-line and the foot-rope are attached. The head-line is 75 feet 

 long, the ground-rope or foot-rope is 120 feet. The attachment of 

 both head-line and ground-rope to a single ring placed at the end of 

 the axis of the board, is one of the features in which the new gear 

 differs from the ordinary otter trawl, and which are patented. In the 

 ordinary otter-trawl the head-line is attached to the upper corner of 

 the board, the foot-rope to the lower corner, and both are of the 

 same length. Consequently the advantage of the beam-trawl in 

 having the ground-rope, when the trawl is working, some distance 

 behind the head-line, is lost in the ordinary otter-trawl, and a fish 

 disturbed by the ground-rope may swim upwards and rise above the 

 head-line, and so escape the net altogether. In Scott's patent gear this 

 particular advantage in the construction of the beam-trawl is retained, 

 and as shown in Fig. 3, the trawl, when working, has the same shape as 

 the beam-trawl. The net is, therefore, constructed with a square piece 

 of netting in the front part of the upper side or back, a piece technically 

 known as the "square," and 58 feet in length. (Fig. 1.) The only other 

 peculiarity on which the patent depends is the arrangement of the two 

 triangles of iron on each board, to which the towing ropes are attached. 

 The advantage claimed for these is, that being rigid, they ensure that 

 the strain on the board shall always be in the right direction, and if the 

 strain should be temporarily interrupted so that the boards fall on the 

 ground, nothing can easily get foul. 



The trawl is towed, not by means of two bridles and a single towing 

 rope, but by two separate ropes, one from each board, one of which is 



