LIFE ON THE GRAND BANKS 
231 
MUZZLING A JIB IN A SQUALL 
In winter weather, fishing can be carried on only in the lulls between squalls. At this season schooners are 
stripped for heavy weather, topmasts and light sails being left ashore. 
Well-ballasted and drawing a lot of 
water aft, the Banks schooner stands up 
to a great spread of sail, the main-boom 
in some vessels being 75 feet long. The 
big mainsail is the largest piece of canvas 
on a fisherman and it is carried until the 
whole strength and skill of twenty to 
twenty-five men is required to make it 
fast in a strong breeze. 
EVERY BANKS SCHOONER IS A SEAFARING 
DEMOCRACY 
Every Banks fishing schooner is a sort 
of seafaring democracy. The crew works 
the ship on a cooperative basis, with the 
skipper as sailing and fishing “boss.” In 
Canadian and American craft in which 
the writer sailed, the gang were shipped 
on the share system, their remuneration 
consisting of an equal share of the pro¬ 
ceeds of the catch after the bills for 
victualing, ice, salt, bait, cook’s wages, 
and other incidentals had been paid. 
The schooner took a quarter or a fifth 
of the gross stock, and this repaid her 
owner for the hire of the vessel. Out of 
this share came the cost of insurance and 
upkeep, but in good seasons, prior to 
1914, many schooners paid their cost of 
construction within twelve months. In 
those days, however, a Banker could be 
built for 112,000; nowadays they cost 
nearly ^50,000. 
The share system has had many vari¬ 
ants. Formerly, in some vessels, it was 
“even shares,” where all hands drew the 
same amount. In other craft it was “by 
the count,” where each dory kept count 
of the number of fish caught and the dory 
catching the greatest number drew the 
highest share. The lucky dory was 
known as the “high line” or “high dory”; 
the lowest count was “low dory,” and in 
some ships if a pair of fishermen came 
“low dory” too often they were “fired.” 
Both of these systems had their draw¬ 
backs, and of late years so many new 
methods of dividing the proceeds of the 
catch have been instituted in the different 
vessel fisheries that it would be confus¬ 
ing, and possibly erroneous, to quote 
any one as being the standard. 
I have been on voyages where the men 
drew $jo each for a week’s work, and on 
others where they made but $45 in two 
months. The Goddess of Luck has 
something to do with the fisherman’s re¬ 
muneration, but the men who fish steadily 
