REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [50] 



There is a small fleet of vessels which, though, like their companions, 

 designed for rapid sailing, are seldom employed in the winter, except in 

 the herring trade to New Brunswick, on account of the shallowness and 

 sharpness of their hulls, which renders them unfit to encounter the 

 heavy winter gales in the open ocean. 



The mackerel vessels are, as a class, swift sailers; they carry, while 

 engaged in this fishery, all the canvas which their rig will allow. The 

 manner in which their sails are managed, and the amount of canvas 

 which they carry, are fully described in the chapter on the fishing- 

 vessels. The mackerel schooners, as a rule, spread more sail, in com- 

 parison with their size, than any other vessels in the world, except, per- 

 haps, the extreme type of schooner rigged yacht, which is essentially 

 a development of the fishing schooner. 



Vessels designed especially for the work of seining mackerel usually 

 have a wide deck, much deck-room being necessary for the proper 

 handling of the fish. Many of the schooners of GO to 80 tons have a 

 beam of 21£ feet to 22i feet. But, although plenty of deck-room is 

 considered of great importance to a mackerel vessel, even deck-room 

 is held to be less necessary than speed. In consequence every effort 

 has been made by the builders to construct swift sailing schooners, and 

 the result is that many of the vessels composing the mackerel fleet are 

 quite able to cope successfully with first-class yachts of the same size. 

 The mackerel vessel is fitted for seining; (1) by placing upon her a 

 summer outfit of repairs and sails;* (2) by removing the heavy cables 

 used in winter fishing, and substituting chain cables. This change is 

 not necessary in the case of many of the Cape Cod and Portland vessels 

 which are employed in the oyster trade, or in the case of most of the Glou- 

 cester vessels engaged in the herring trade, since these use only chain 

 cables at any season ; (3) by the removal of gurry-pens, and all other in- 

 cumbrances from the deck ; (4) by the rigging of a seine- roller upon the 

 port-quarter rail. This is a wooden roller of oak or other hard wood, G 

 to 7 inches in diameter, and G to 8 feet long, which revolves on pivots 

 in its ends, received into iron sockets in cleats, which are fastened to the 

 rail. The forward end of the roller is about 3 feet aft of the main rigging. 



* Whatever repairs are needed are first attended to. -while, in the meantime, the 

 jibboom is rigged out, the foretopmast (if the vessel carries one) is sent up, the spara 

 cleaned and painted, and the rigging tarred. This having been done, the vessel is 

 taken on the railway and thoroughly cleaned and painted. The work of cleaning 

 and painting spars, tarring rigging, &c, was formerly done l»y the vessel's crew, but 

 at the present time it is done by gangs of shoresmen organized for the purpose, the 

 expense for the labor performed beiug paid for by the fishermen. The custom of 

 hiring others to do this work began about 1863 or 1864. The fisheries were at that 

 time very prosperous, and many of the fishermen preferred to pay some one for tarring 

 and such work rather than to do it themselves. At first two or three men of the crew 

 usually did the work, being paid for it by their shipmates, but in a short time it 

 passed into the hands of the longshoresmen to the general satisfaction of both owners 

 and crews. The work of cleaning the vessel's bottom, preparatory to painting it. is 

 now often done by shoresmen, who are paid by the crew. 



