THE RAW MATERIAL 



leaving out of account the swarms of smaller vessels 

 like sailing smacks, sailing drifters, motor vessels 

 and half-decked and open boats. For the purposes 

 of this explanation steam trawlers and steam drifters 

 only need attention. 



The steam trawler, like the steam drifter, stood 

 in a class apart. Each was built for a special pur- 

 pose, and though there was a great similarity be- 

 tween them they were in several important respects 

 different, for the trawler would regularly go long 

 voyages, making the Iceland and White Sea trips 

 as a matter of course, as well as working the deep 

 sea grounds nearer the home ports ; while the drifter 

 was constructed for less strenuous work and in 

 waters that were seldom more than a few hours' 

 run from those ports. The trawler worked with 

 the huge trawl, scooping up every sort of fish, 

 shooting her gear and towing it ; while the drifter, 

 specially built for the herring fishery, shot her nets 

 and then rode, or drifted, with them, at the will of 

 wind and tide. 



The steam trawler was the remarkably successful 

 development of the old paddle-boats which were 

 experimentally fitted with the beam-trawl for fishing 

 purposes in the North Sea, and began that revolu- 

 tion which in a few years doomed the sailing fleets. 

 The huge, cumbersome beam-trawl, which involved 

 so much laborious work, especially in the days of 

 sheer man-handling, before the helpful steam cap- 

 stan was provided, was fitted in the quaint squat 

 paddle-boats which had already done a life's work 



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