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FRESH-HALIBUT FISHERY. 9 
an explanation of the diagram: (1) Bowsprit. (2) Pawl-bit. (3) Starboard windlass bit. (4) Port 
windlass bit. (5) Windlass. (6) Jib-sheet traveler. (7) Foremast. (8) Port cable tier. (9) Starboard 
cable tier. (10) Forecastle g¢ompanion slide. (11) Stove-pipe funnel, usually of cast iron, firmly 
secured to the deck, with sheet-iron cap. (12) Fore hatch, showing grating. (13) Main hatch. 
(14) “Break” of quarter deck, or grub beam. (15) Mainmast. (16) Starboard pump. (17) Port pump. 
(18) After hatch. (19) Trunk or cabin house. (20) Stove funnel. (21) Skylight. (22) Companion 
slide. (23, 24, 25, and 26) Bait planks around top of house. (27) Wheel-box. (28) Wheel. (29 and 
30) Bit-heads for belaying mainsheet, &c.,to. (31) Taffrail. (A, A, A, A, a, a, &c.) Checker planks. 
(b, b, &c.) Checkers. (c, c) Dotted lines showing position of dories when on deck. - 
The halibut vessels, like other trawlers, are provided with a “reefing plank,” which is lashed 
across the ends of the davits upon the stern. This is used by the fishermen to stand upon in reefing 
the mainsail. When not in use the riding sail is tied up snugly, and generally lashed on top of 
the reefing plank. 
Like all vessels which carry dories upon deck, they are provided with dory tackles on both 
sides, these being simple whip-purchases, with two single blocks, attached to the fore and main 
rigging on each side. They almost invariably carry a jib-boom, excepting in the winter season, 
and are always provided, like all other bankers, with a riding sail. A few of them, in the summer, 
carry a fore topmast with foregaff-topsail and “balloon jib.” 
In the chapter on fishing vessels the general features of the fishing schooner are fully discussed, 
therefore such description is omitted here. 
These vessels are usually provided with more complete outfits of nautical instruments than 
those in other branches of the fisheries, this being necessary from the fact that halibut are often 
sought on small and isolated patches of ground, and that it is of special importance for the men 
engaged in this fishery to make good Jand-falls when running for home. In other respects these 
schooners are always fitted out as thoroughly as fishing vessels of any other class. 
The Connecticut and New York halibut vessels used to have their ice-houses arranged in a 
somewhat different manner from that just described. 
The walls of the compartments of these were often sheathed with zinc, the fishermen of that 
section claiming that the halibyt would keep longer than on the Gloucester vessels. In former 
years many welled sloops from Noank, New London, and Greenport were engaged in the halibut 
fishery, but at the present time only schooners are employed in this industry from those ports, these 
being of a larger size than the other vessels of the New York fleet, though smaller than those of 
Gloucester. The schooner Scotia, of New London, the largest of the Connecticut halibut fleet, 
registers about 65 tons, while her companions average about 45 tons. 
Mr. Charles P. Tripland tells us that previous to 1858 halibut were caught by the Connecticut 
vessels wholly on hand-lines and only welled smacks were employed, the fish being taken to New 
York alive. But with the introduction of the method of trawling, the practice of keeping the fish 
in ice began, and tight-bottomed crafts were used, many of the old smacks having their wells 
removed and their bottoms plugged up. For several years, he says, after the fishermen of the 
ports on Long Island Sound began to icé halibut, they resorted to many schemes to keep the fish 
fresh a long time. One method was to sheathe the ice-pens with zine; another to line the sides of 
the pens with straw, packed in about two inches thick, this being held in place by laths nailed 
over it. Some vessels also had a false ceiling beneath the beams for the purpose, as supposed, of 
preventing the heat striking through the deck upon the fish. None of these methods, however, 
proved satisfactory, and after having been thoroughly tested they have all been abandoned. One 
of the latest experiments, and one which seemingly has much merit, is to build the ice-house—plat- 
he 
