I 9 2 NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS 



and she will doubtless be the pioneer of a number of 

 specially built craft for North Sea work. 



The type of ship with which smacksmen have be- 

 come most familiar in connection with policing the 

 fishing-grounds is the torpedo-gunboat. There were 

 originally sixteen of these sister first-class torpedo-gun- 

 boats, which, with a speed of twenty knots, were de- 

 signed to run down and destroy torpedo craft, till they 

 in turn, and very quickly, became useless for their 

 purpose through the advent of destroyers. These gun- 

 boats had a displacement of 735 tons, with a length of 

 230 ft, a breadth of 27, a complement of 85 men, and 

 a 47 quick-firing gun as the heaviest ordnance. In 

 bad or even moderate weather they were what a North 

 Sea man would call a " washer," and service in them 

 was neither comfortable nor exhilarating. 



No clearer, finer first-hand picture of the work done 

 by His Majesty's ships on fisheries protection has been 

 given than that by Commander E. Hamilton Currey, 

 R.N., in two articles " On the North Sea Fishery," 

 which he contributed to \hePallMall Gazette. He has 

 been kind enough to let me quote from these papers. 



" A thousand drifters are out to-night, and as each 

 has shot nets varying in length from a mile to a mile 

 and a quarter, this particular portion of the sea craves 

 wary navigation. Outside the outermost the gunboat 

 crawls slowly up and down till dawn. With their hinged 

 foremasts lowered, their riding-lights burning, and just 

 steadied by a rag of a mizzen, the drifters ride at 

 their nets. But now a flush comes over the rim of the 

 eastern horizon, and the long spell of immobility is at 



