SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVING FISHING VESSELS. 
191 
since bought two other vessels, viz, Mamelena 2d and 3d, and they are also connected 
with a fishing company at Canary Islands for which we built three vessels.” 
The excellent sea-going qualities of these are shown by the following extract from 
a letter written by the captain of the Sea Queen, a vessel similar to the largest fishing 
steamers. The Sea Queen, which is engaged in trading about the West Indies and 
vicinity, left Leith, Scotland, January 2, 1881, and arrived at Kingston, Jamaica, on 
February 9, encountering very heavy southwest gales on her iiassage. A little more 
than a month later the captain wrote as follows : 
“Bermuda, S. S. Sea Queen, 11th March, 1881. — I just finished delivering the 
cargo at St. Anne’s Bay, and was leaving, when 1 got a telegram to come full speed 
back to Kingston to carry Government dispatches. I arrived there at 6.30 a. m. next 
morning, and after a detention of two and a half hours, taking coal, water, and stores, 
was sent off to this place, Bermuda, with news of Colley’s death, and the Cape Des- 
patch, with orders to stop the troop ship Orontes, with the Kinety-ninth Eegiment, and 
send them to the Cape. H. M. S. Phoenix had been dispatched from a place 86 miles 
nearer Bermuda, twenty-eight hours previously. I had strong head winds the first 
two days; when I met a heavy northwest gale. Knowing the importance of the mis- 
sion intrusted to me, and the capabilities of the vessel, I kept on, although it blew 
with hurricane force at times, and the crew complained that I was trying to drown 
them. I arrived safely the morning of the fifth day, the distance being 1,130 miles. I 
got here just in time to stop the Orontes, as she was to have left two hours after I 
arrived. The admiral said he would be doing nothing but his duty in writing the 
home Government, and the government of Jamaica, of the valuable services I had 
rendered them in delivering the dispatches. H. M. S. Phoenix did not arrive until 
twenty-four hours after I did, she being hove to thirty-six hours.” 
5. SCOTCH STEAM-DRIFTERS. 
There were four steam- drifters employed in the Scottish herring fisheries in 1883, 
of which the Kingfisher is the type. These were modeled and rigged like the steam- 
trawlers built at Grautou, and which have already been described. The following 
are the details of dimensions, etc., of the Kingfisher: Length over all, 92 feet; between 
perpendiculars, 85 feet; beam, 18 feet; depth of hold, 9|^ feet; tonnage, 80 tons gross; 
25 nominal horse-power; speed, 10 knots under steam alone; 12 to 14 knots with steam 
and sail. The consumption of coal is 2 tons per day when fishing, and 2^- tons when 
running. She carries 20 tons of permanent stone ballast, and has capacity for 100 
tons of cargo. 
William Jarvis (ship and boat builder), of Anstruther, Scotland, also exhibited ;it 
London a model of a screw steamer intended for the drift-net and long-line fisheries 
of Scotland. This boat had a sharp bow, concave below water-line, straight stem with 
square forefoot, hollow floor near keel, but rather flat as it extended outwards, with 
short turn on bilge, giving good sail-carrying power. The floor merged into a long, 
fine run, which was thinner than the run of the average British fishing vessel. The 
steru was round. The screw had only two blades. The model was yawl-rigged, the 
mizzen being a lug-sail, and the mainsail of the ordinary fore-and-aft type, with gaff, 
but having no boom. The mainmast, as in nearly all drift-net boats, worked on a hinge 
