APPENDIX 323 



worthiness afloat, the area of fishing operations will be 

 increased, time wasted in getting to the fishing-grounds 

 will be diminished, quick marketing of fish will be 

 facilitated, and the immense fatigues of fishing, which 

 wear out strong men early, will largely be avoided. In 

 a word, the small fisherman will be in an altogether better 

 position to compete with the big companies, and fishing 

 will offer a better prospect to young, enterprising men. 

 Furthermore, a motor installation, costing up to fifty 

 pounds, would not, as a rule, be beyond the means of a 

 working fisherman who had been able to save or other- 

 wise gain money enough to buy a boat and fleet of nets 

 or trawl. His cherished independence would be preserved. 

 That being so, it may be useful to describe shortly an 

 experimental motor-boat which has been built by Mr. 

 W.J. Hodge, of Dartmouth, for Bob and TomWoolley 

 and myself, for service at Sidmouth, where the difficulties 

 of a shifting beach are funher complicated by a total absence 

 of shelter and the need in stormy weather of hauling all the 

 boats up over a high sea-wall. For a long time it was said 

 that motor-boats would be impossible on Sidmouth and 

 similar beaches, owing to their weight and the liability of 

 damaging the propeller. The few motor-boats at present 

 in use on beaches are mostly, in fact, of the ordmary 

 harbour type, sometimes more hea\-ily built to stand the 

 knocking about, and they require several men to handle 

 them safely ashore. Our problem was, therefore, to get 

 a new type of boat for general purposes — towing, fishing, 

 and passenger work; — which should be seaworthy, and at 

 the same time more manageable on a beach. (The 

 expense of several men hauling a boat up and down shore 

 may easily exceed the cost of the petrol consumed afloat.) 



