46 THE FISHING INDUSTRY 



mouth kept open by attaching its upper edge to a beam 

 of wood (beam trawl). When the net was full of fish, it 

 was run ashore. Ultimately, instead of drawing the 

 net ashore, the fishermen remained at sea and hauled 

 the net on board with a winch. In this way the seine 

 net gradually developed into the trawl net. The trawl 

 net marked a big improvement, for it could be fished in 

 deeper water further from shore, and thus greatly 

 increased the scope of fishing operations, and led to the 

 rapid growth and improvement of demersal fishing. 



Trawling is said to have been invented at the end of 

 the seventeenth century by the Brixham fishermen. 

 The first trawlers were quite small vessels, and were 

 followed towards the end of the eighteenth century by 

 the smack. The smack reached its maximum size and 

 efficiency at about the middle of the nineteenth century. 

 Some of the smacks that are still fishing from Brixham 

 durable, seaworthy, and with beautiful lines are 

 probably a hundred years old. 



In 1870, there were a thousand first-class smacks in 

 the North Sea, three hundred in the English Channel, 

 and over a hundred in the Irish Sea. 



The smacks were fitted with a tank in the well of the 

 ship, in which the fish were kept in sea-water and 

 brought in alive. In Denmark to-day, plaice are 

 brought ashore and sold alive. 



The subsequent development of trawl fishing has been 

 in the construction of larger nets, worked by more 

 powerful trawling vessels driven by steam. 



The size of beam trawl that can be worked by a large 

 sailing smack is limited by the trawling power of the 

 vessel, and also by the difficulty of constructing and 

 handling very long beams. The maximum length of 

 beam in general use by sailing smacks is fiftyjfeet. The 

 length of the net, from its mouth to the narrow of 



