312 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



of to-day. The vessels were called top-sail schooners, which 

 was the rig of the privateers of the Revolution and of the 

 War of 1812. 1 



Modifications were made in the shape of the hull and the 

 arrangement of the decks. A Marblehead cod-fishing 

 schooner of 1750 is represented with two stout masts sup- 

 ported by stays, a short maintopmast, and a bowsprit. 

 The schooner had a wide, square stern, there was scarcely 

 any curve to the deck, while the quarter-deck was raised 

 several feet above the waist of the schooner. The bows 

 were blunt, practically a semi-circle. This class of 

 schooner was known as a " heel-tapper," from the fancied 

 resemblance that the deck gave to an inverted shoe, the 

 quarter-deck simulating the heel. These schooners gener- 

 ally were without bulwarks forward of the quarter-deck, 

 or at most with a strip spiked to the top timbers to serve 

 as a low rail. It was believed in those days, and the idea 

 was held well into the next century, that it was unsafe to 

 have any rail to prevent the free sweep of water across 

 the main deck. Capt. Collins, writing in 1898, describes 

 this type at length. He says, "The same idea found ex- 

 pression in building sea-going vessels for commercial pur- 

 poses until after the beginning of the present century, and 

 even as late as 1815, many had no bulwarks forward of 

 the fore rigging. The quarter deck of one of these old 

 "heel tappers," being so much higher than the main deck, 

 was comparatively dry in a gale when the main deck would 

 be all awash; therefore, when anchored on the banks in 

 rough weather the crew stood there to fish, which they 

 could do very well, since at that time only half the men 

 engaged in fishing at the same time, as their rule was 

 to fish, watch and watch, each half of the crew taking its 

 turn of four hours in regular rotation. 



"The cabin was aft, and entered through a small com- 

 i W. L. Marvin, The American Merchant Marine, p. 23. 



