150 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 
The trawling vessel is usually one of the stanchest class of fishing schooners of the ordinary 
type, though there are a number of second-class vessels sent out from Provincetown, Beverly, and 
Plymouth, the summer voyage to the Grand Bank not being a very severe one. The Gloucester 
trawlers are all first-class vessels, being employed, when not trawling for cod, in some branch of 
the winter fishery, such as the Newfoundland herring trade, or in fishing for haddock or halibut. 
In their general rig the trawling vessels have no peculiarities to distinguish them from those 
in the haddock and halibut fleets. 
The arrangement of the deck is very similar to that described elsewhere in the discussion of 
the halibut schooners, the checker-boards, the bait-boards, and the manner of stowing cables and 
dories being essentially the same. A few Gloucester trawlers carry a gurry-pen, placed forward 
of the house, in the same manner as that described in connection with the George’s schooner. This 
is used for the storage of the spare gear and to give more room for cutting up the bait. The anchors 
are precisely the same as those carried by other fishing vessels. The cables are of the same size 
as those carried by the halibut fishermen, but shorter, their usual length being 200 or 250 fathoms. 
The dories are the same size as those. carried by the halibut fishermen. Vessels from other ports 
do not generally carry such large cables and anchors as are taken by the Gloucester schooners. 
The trawler carries on its deck from three to five “liver butts,” which are ordinary molasses 
hogsheads, with a capacity of 130 to 175 gallons. Three or four of them are stowed together in 
chocks and lashed to ring-bolts in the deck, just forward of the house, and with their ends toward 
it. Others are sometimes carried, stowed on their bilges in front of the main hatch, or standing 
upright, lashed to the fore or main rigging. These butts remain in these positions during the 
voyage, and are filled up with livers through the scuttle-holes in the tops, the water being drawn 
off from time to time through the “spile-holes,” bored in the heads or in the staves near the 
bottom. The scuttle-holes are covered with canvas or boards to keep out the water. 
The splitting tables and dressing tubs, which are used when the vessels are dressing fish on 
the fishing grounds, will be described hereafter. 
The interior fitting of a trawler is somewhat peculiar. As a rule these vessels carry no ballast, 
the quantity of salt, provisions, and water carried for a bank trip being sufficiently heavy to serve 
. in its place until the vessels begin to fill up with fish. The greater portion of the hold is occupied 
by salt-pens, which are built of single boards nailed to stanchions and extending along the sides 
of the vessel, beginning at either side of the bait-pen, in the after part of the hold, and extending 
forward nearly to the store-room, which occupies the forward part of the hold. 
Amidships, between the after hatch and main hatch, the hold is completely filled with salt- 
pens; these are called the ‘‘midship pens,” in distinction from the ethers which are known as 
“wing-pens.” Under each hatch is a clear space called the slaughter-house. The forward slaugh- 
ter-house, or that under the main hatch, is used in salting and kenching the first fish before the 
pens begin to empty, while that under the after hatch serves as a storage for spare gear and also 
as a passage-way. The pens, which vary from 12 to 18 according to the size of the vessel, hold 
from 15 to 25 hogsheads of salt each, the aggregate capacity varying from 180 to 300 hogsheads. 
The bait-pen is built forward of the cabin bulkhead and between this and the after hatch. It 
is 9 or 10 feet wide and 10 or 12 feet long, holding about 60 barrels of bait in addition to the ice 
necessary for its preservation. The bottom of the pen is raised about a foot above the keelson, 
and it has a center partition by which it is divided into two sections. This is necessary in order 
that one pen may be kept closed and protected trom the air while the bait is being used from the 
other. The bait-pen is built double, the boards breaking seams to prevent the passage of air, and 
in the forward bulkhead it has a door on either side of the partition opening into the after side of 
