38 SEA FISH OF TRINIDAD 



to Trinidad. The cost without insurance would be about 

 £4$°, covering wages for i master, i mate, i cook-steward, 

 3 seamen, 2 engineers, and 3 firemen, with their food, all 

 deck and engine-room stores, nautical instniments and 

 charts, and coals, with port charges at ports of call, and also 

 return fares if any. The insurance would vary from £5 . 5s. to 

 £j. 7s., roughly £100, according to the time of the year for 

 bringing her out. An experienced trawling captain could 

 be engaged for about ;^20 a month, an experienced fish- 

 curer for about half that amount, and arrangements could 

 probably be made to get them out as part of the crew to save 

 their food and wages out, but the trawler captain would not 

 do for taking the steamer out. I think it would be advisable, 

 at all events for the inauguration of the industry, to have 

 two experienced hands, one for the trawl and the other for 

 the curing. 



As I consider fishing with a beam-trawl would in all 

 probability be the most successful mode of supplying the 

 Trinidad market, for the benefit of those who are at present 

 making a precarious living as toilers of the sea, I here ap- 

 pend a short description of one as used in British waters, for 

 which I am indebted to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 



" The beam-trawl may be simply described as a triangular 

 flat, purse-shaped net, with the mouth extended by a horizontal 

 wooden beam, which is raised a short distance from the 

 ground by means of two iron frames or heads, one at each 

 end, the upper part of the mouth being fastened to the beam, 

 and the under portion dragging on the ground as the net is 

 towed over the bottom. The beam of course, varies in 

 length according to the size of the net, and depends to some 

 extent also on the length and power of the vessel which has 

 to work it. In the larger ' smacks' or trawl boats, the beam 

 ranges from 36 ft. to 50 ft. in length, and there is hardly any- 

 thing less than this now used by the deep-sea trawlers. 

 When the trawl is being hoisted in, the first part of the 

 apparatus taken on board is the large heavy beam, and this 

 is very commonly done when the vessel is rolling and pitch- 

 ing about in a sea-way. It is therefore necessary for the 

 sake of safety that the beam should be secured as soon as 



