Chapter VI. Sailing Vessels on the Banks 



The beginning of the Restoration marked, with the resumption of cod 

 fishing, a renovation of the procedures of bank fishing. Fishermen and out- 

 fitters had not forgotten the surprising results obtained by Captain Sabot and 

 his imitators at the dawn of the Revolution in substituting the line trawl for 

 the hand line. The Maritime Administration had remembered equally well. 

 But, while the former saw in this innovation the means of augmenting their 

 gain considerably, the latter considered it from the less encouraging view- 

 point of the danger to which it exposed the men in the long-boats in setting 

 and handling the lines, a new risk that, since the distant origin of their in- 

 dustry, the bank fishermen had never run. Also it was judged well to main- 

 tain the ban on the new procedure which had immediately followed the first 

 trials by Captain Sabot. 



Once again, the ruling found itself in default before the general accept- 

 ance of the new method, less tiring for the fishermen and at the same time 

 assuring them, by its very superior catch compared to the handline, a very 

 important profit. 



One saw the vessels outfitted for the bank fishery sail with all the old 

 equipment for handline fishing and, in reality, many of them limited them- 

 selves for many years to the old practice of drift fishing, with the sole dif- 

 ference that the old outboard platforms had practically disappeared every- 

 where, the fishermen lining up at the side of the vessel, each installed on a 

 small wooden rectangular platform. 



But, aside from these, other vessels practiced, from the first cam- 

 paigns in 1815, the line trawl fishery and, in the following years, they rapid- 

 ly became the majority, the captains fabricating, once at sea, line trawls by 

 tying hand lines end to end. 



Moreover, the outfitters had furnished their vessels with the long-boats 

 necessary for this kind of fishery, no one being able to prevent this. The 

 vessels, square-rigged two-masters or latin- and square-rigged two-masters 

 of 100-150 tons for the most part, carried two large long-boats, one of which 

 served as a spare, and a small boat which was called the "portmanteau (davit 

 boat) because, while the long-boats remained in the water while in service, 

 they raised the "portmanteau" to the deck each evening. 



The crew of the long-boat generally comprised 5 men and an apprentice- 

 seaman; that of the portmanteau, 4 men and a ship's boy. On anchoring on 



70 



