LIFE ON THE GRAND BANKS 
229 
SPEEDING FOR MARKET: A BANKER IN WINTER RIG 
The modern Banks fishing-schooners are undoubtedly the handsomest commercial sailing craft afloat. 
They are built of wood and range from ico to 150 feet in length, with a tonnage of from 80 to 175 tons. 
evolved a type of sailing schooner which 
is the last word in weatherly qualities and 
speed under sail, and the men who man 
these vessels are the only real sailors left 
in this age of steam. 
THREE KINDS OF BANKS FISHERIES 
There are three distinct fisheries in 
which the schooner fleets of the Western 
North Atlantic are employed, namely, 
fresh fishing, salt fishing, and halibut 
fishing. Mackerel seining also employs a 
schooner fleet during the season, but this 
is not a Banks fishery in the accepted sense 
of the term. 
As most people know, the Banks are 
vast areas of shoal water lying at vari¬ 
ous distances off the eastern coasts of the 
United States and Canada and south and 
east of Newfoundland. Upon these 
Banks, in depths ranging from 15 to 200 
fathoms, tremendous numbers of certain 
demersal species of fish are to be found 
at various seasons. Cod is the common¬ 
est variety caught; Haddock ranks sec¬ 
ond, while Hake, Pollock, Cusk, Halibut, 
Skate, Whiting, Catfish, Wolf-fish, Monk¬ 
fish, and Lumpfish are also marketed. 
FISHING WITH A LINE NEARLY HALF 
A MILE LONG 
In the offshore fisheries upon the 
Banks, none of these fish are caught by 
net unless by steam trawling. In the 
schooner fishery the long-line, misnamed 
‘Trawl” by fishermen, and hand-line are 
used exclusively. 
The long-line is, as its name implies, a 
