THE RAW MATERIAL 



the davs when smacks went fleeting. They sailed 

 from Grimsby, Hull, Scarborough, Whitby, 

 Boston, Ramsgate, Yarmouth and Lowestoft to the 

 North Sea grounds ; while the English Channel was 

 worked by Brixham and neighbouring smacks. 



In 1887, when the smacks had reached their 

 fullest development, two large fleets and three small 

 fleets worked from Hull, frequenting the Dogger all 

 the year round, the number of hands employed vary- 

 ing from 2,200 in summer to 2,900 in winter. Two 

 large and several small fleets from Grimsby, with 

 about 2,750 hands, worked between Heligoland and 

 the Sylt in summer and on the Dogger in winter; 

 while many other smacks consistently worked off 

 the Texel and the Dutch coast. 



Many a quaint old smacksman's yarn related to 

 adventures ashore at Heligoland and on the Dutch 

 coast, for when calms prevailed and the island and 

 the coast were handy, it was no hard thing to get 

 ashore in the boat. Extensive consumption of very 

 cheap and very deadly foreign spirits was an almost 

 inevitable episode' in these shore visits, and some of 

 the most terrible of the contemporary North Sea 

 tragedies were due to this indulgence in raw and 

 fiery drink. 



There were available at the beginning of the war, 

 for naval purposes, not a few of the old school of 

 skipper and man who had a thorough knowledge of 

 the Heligoland and neighbouring waters; to whom 

 the secrets of the banks in the dangerous shallow 

 depths were readily revealed by the lead, and who 



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