ABERDEEN TRAWLING STATISTICS 



For the Year 1913. 



Introductory Note by 

 D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON. 



Before entering, as usual, upon oiu' annual siu-vey of the detailed 

 Statistics of the Aberdeen trawling fleet, let us glance briefly, on 

 this occasion, at the General Statistics which throw light on the 

 prosperity and gxowth of the port. In our First Report on Fishery 

 and HydrogTaphical Investigations, published in 190.5 (pp. 319-3.52), 

 an account was given of the gTOwth of the trawling industry of Aber- 

 deen from its fii-st beginning, by means of a single sailing trawler in 

 1874, and a single steam trawler in 1882 ; and statistical tables were 

 printed, showing in detail the growth of the industry, year by year, 

 from 1889-1904. Without again going into the whole question so 

 fully as was done in that First Report, I may now, once more, 

 epitomise the leading data, drawn from the Board's General Reports 

 and Scientific Publications, in order to continue the history of the 

 Aberdeen fishing industry down to the present time. For brevity's 

 sake the figm-es for every third year only will be printed in the following 

 tables. 



TABLE A. 



Number of Steam Trawlers employed from Aberdeen 

 and in all Scotland. 



* Not including 30 foreign trawlers, fishing more or less regularly from Aberdeen. 



From the above Table it appears that the number of steam trawlers 

 working from Aberdeen has just about trebled in the 21 years since 

 1892 ; and the same proportion is true for all Scotland, the Aberdeen 

 boats standing, during the whole period, at not far from 70 per cent, 

 of the whole. This threefold increase in number does not suflficientlv 

 indicate the increase of fishing power, for which it is not easy to find 

 a standard of comparison. But we may safely say that the average 

 tonnage, per vessel, has at least doubled (from 30 to 60 tons), and 



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