CHAPTER V 

 SMACKS AND TRAWLS 



YARMOUTH was the cradle of beam-trawling. From 

 that famous old port the first of the beam-equipped 

 smacks sailed, and it became the headquarters of the 

 great sailing fleets which worked the North Sea. 



In the vast and astonishing developments which have 

 taken place in connection with deep-sea fishing during 

 the last quarter of a century, no port has shared in 

 greater viscissitudes than the town whose harbour is the 

 Yare. Towards the end of the Forties there were not 

 more than four or five trawlers leaving Yarmouth ; less 

 than twenty years later the number had grown to 150; 

 in 1887, when smacks had reached their highest de- 

 velopment, four fleets sailed from the port, and nearly 

 3000 men and boys were serving in them. The chief 

 spirit of the industry at that time was Mr. Samuel 

 Hewett, who began life as a smack's boy. In 1863 he 

 owned between fifty and sixty trawl-smacks and carrying 

 cutters, and was paying ; 20,000 yearly for wages and 

 victuals. He also possessed half a dozen line vessels, 

 catching haddock, cod, and whiting; but he was 

 abandoning these for the trawlers, which paid better. 

 The time was coming, and was not far distant, when the 

 steamboat was to oust the trawl-smack just as she had 

 crushed the liner. 



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