[47] OPERATIONS OF SCHOONER GRAMPUS. 537 



Ft. In. 



Depth, top of upper strake to ceiling 3 5£ 



Top strake, depth 8 



Outriggers for mainsheet, each 2 5 



Mainmast, total length 21 



Foremast 23 



Fore and main gaff, each 7 2 



Bowsprit, outside 3 



Oars, three 24 



Oars, two 13 6 



Area of canvas (22 inch duck) 45 yards 



These boats have two or three men in a crew. They are usually 



painted outside and in, white, with black top streaks being the most 



favorite colors above water ; the bottom is coated with metallic paint. 



They can carry 12 quintals of fish, besides about 1 ton of ballast, fish- 

 ing gear, etc. 



(5) Newfoundland fishing skiff. — A clumsy, clinker-built, keel boat, 

 locally known as a " skiff," broad and moderately deep, with square 

 stern and rather full rounding bow, is more exclusively used in the 

 Newfoundland inshore fisheries than any other. These vary from about 

 15 to 30 feet in length and from 5 to 8 feet in width. The smaller ones 

 are generally propelled with oars, assisted by a single sprit-sail, but the 

 larger ones usually have two small sprit-sails and a jib, and occasion- 

 ally a "jigger" sail at the stern. The seine boats used for shooting 

 cod and herring seines are a modification of the skiff, being somewhat 

 longer in proportion and very broad aft, though it should be said that 

 ordinary skiffs are extensively employed for setting seines. Some of 

 the boats intended especially for cod seining, and perhaps some of those 

 which are used for catching herring, have a piece of glass fitted in the 

 bottom near the stern, just beneath the steerman's feet, this glass en- 

 abling the skipper or seine-master to see the fish some distance be- 

 neath the surface of the water as the boat is rowed along by its crew. 

 Others use the " fish-spyer," a metal tube with glass bottom. 



At St. John's, and elsewhere in many of the adjacent harbors along 

 the coast, one type of square-stern fishing "skiffs" is in very general 

 use. There are certain differences in size, etc., but boats of this class 

 are generally very uniform in shape. They resemble in form the boats 

 used on the sealing ships, and are commonly called "sealing-punts," 

 though they may never have been used for catching seals. In the local- 

 ities where the fishermen seldom engage in the seal fisheries, as, for in- 

 stance, the harbors in Fortune Ba} 7 , a craft of this class is simply called 

 a "punt" or a "skiff." Many of those used in the localities last men 

 tioned are larger than the St. John's boats of the same type, and fre- 

 quently have a somewhat different rig. The most noticeable, and per- 

 haps the most common, difference in the rig is a small sprit-sail carried 

 at the extreme stern, the mast being stepped as far aft as possible, and 

 the sheet of the sail trimming to the end of au outrigger or to the 

 weather quarter. This sail is called a "driver" or "jigger," and has 



