64 CHANGES IN TRAWLING VESSELS. 



The fish-hold in the best ships is from 9 to 10 feet in 

 height, divided into compartments, each with two shelves. In 

 the ' Southesk/ a screw-vessel at Montrose, there are two holds. 

 When fishes are stored with alternate layers of ice, the front of 

 the compartment is closed with planks, unpainted or coated 

 green with enamel-paint, which is readily purified by washing. 

 The shelves, again, in each division, are useful in diminishing 

 compression. This alone is a marked change on the Granton 

 trawling- vessels of 1884, for the newest ships then had only an 

 ice-chamber surrounding a central compartment in which the 

 fish-boxes were placed. The smacks from Grimsby and other 

 parts in England, it is true, used ice in the manner now 

 described in 1884 and previously, but it was comparatively rare 

 in Scotland at that period. It is necessitated now by the 

 lengthened voyages to the more distant grounds. During the 

 voyage the water which collects from the fishes and the melted 

 ice is carefully pumped out by a ' donkey ' engine, so as to keep 

 the fish-hold dry. The hold will contain about 700 boxes of 

 fishes, and great care is taken to keep it pure. In the Granton 

 General Steam Fishing Company's ships ice is not used during 

 the winter, for the fishes can be carried fresh to the market by 

 means of one ship acting as a 'carrier' daily. In the warmer 

 weather, however, ice in bags is taken on board each vessel. 

 Few ships at Granton, indeed, have the compartments for 

 packing the fishes in ice, with the slips of board for closing 

 them. This shows that the majority fish in the less distant 

 waters. 



In some of the newest vessels the accommodation for all the 

 crew is in the aft-cabin, the fore-part of the vessel being rele- 

 gated to the fish-hold and stores. This appears to be a decided 

 improvement in regard to the maintenance of a cool tempera- 

 ture and pure air near the fishes, especially when long voyages 

 are undertaken. Formerly the crew had a fore-cabin, and the 

 captain and mate an aft-cabin, and in many vessels the same 

 arrangement still occurs. 



The engine-room of the newer vessels is better ventilated, 

 and the arrangements for the working of the engines facilitated. 

 Even the ventilators are utilised for the hoisting of cinders 



