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The Government-designed longliner is
not a seaworthy boat
Clayton Hull of Pilley’s Island in Notre Dame Bay is
concerned about the state of boat building in the province. The
following is his own personal statement of what he believes. In addition
he is in the process of drawing up a set of plans for the type of boat,
he would like to build for the offshore fishery. His ˝” scale, plans
would translate into a 65’ long boat, with a 20’ beam and 10’ draft. He
is also in the process of building several models boats.
For quite some time I have been listening to
fishermen, over radio and television, and in personal conversation,
discussing the type of boat they would like to have. Due to government
restrictions they are not allowed to build the type of boat they want.
With all their so called marine architectural know-how, the government
has not com eup with a boat that can truly be called seaworthy.
It’s alright to try and design a boat that can be
adopted to all kinds of fisheries providing you do not destroy her
seaworthiness in the process. If she is not a oat that handles well in
rough weather, she is not worth a “cod’s trail”. The government
longliner is well built with the type of material and fastenings that
should go into all boats, but the materials and fastenings alone do not
make a good sea boat.
My father was fisherman and shipbuilder. He built
boats from a 15 foot rowboat to a 317 ton schooner, and he sailed many
of them. I learned the trade from him and consequently I know something
about the technical art of producing a good seaworthy boat.
The government-designed boats are all round bottomed
tubes. They roll like barrels in a deep sea, they have no hollow or deep
heel aft which makes them steer like a bucking bronco in rough weather.
Their carrying holds are situated to far aft, which causes them to set
by the stern when loaded, and adds extremely to their unseaworthiness.
Add to that a number of gill nets, a heavy seine or other fishing gear
on the stern, and you have a boat that is impossible to handle in a
running sea.
It’s a mystery that more of them are not swamped at
sea. Those that have been were not lost through a lock of navigational
ability or seamanship, but rather because when they get caught in bad
weather they could not land in a safe harbour.
There is not an individual on earth who can tell a
Newfoundland fishermen how to design and build a good sea boat. He has
spent his whole life on the ocean, he knows the changing moods and
temperatures of the winds and waves and how they act upon a boat. He has
learned it in a hard school under a severe and relentless master and he
is the only one qualified to design a boat to suit those moods.
The government man behind the desk may be an expert
in pushing a ball point pen or trapping a typewriter, but he cannot
design a good, all weather boat. Even the navel architect, with all his
navel architectural technology, has not qualifications in this field
that our fishermen have, because the fishermen have been learning these
qualities from his childhood, or at least from his early teens. He has
learned many things first hand that cannot be taught in any school or
college.
For hundreds of years Newfoundlanders have been
designing and building their own boats, and they have sailed them upon
almost every ocean of the world. We have hundreds of fishermen in this
province who can do the same thing today.
Newfoundlanders have been acclaimed in two world wars
as being the best small boat handlers in the world, and they are just as
good at building boats as they are handlers in the world, and they are
just as good at building boats as they are at handling them.
I am not trying to say that the government should not
have any say in the way our boats are constructed. I agree that there
should be a number of competent ship inspectors who would make periodic
checks on all boats under construction to make periodic checks on all
boats under construction to make sure that the schedule called for is
strictly adhered to. But the lines and profile of the boat should be
left to the fishermen as they are the only ones who know what they want.
The naval architectural technology used in Admiral Lord Nelson’s Flag
Ship, the Victory, produced more seaworthy qualities than is found in
the modern longliner of today.
So I would suggest that the government put what
restriction they wish on the construction and sturdiness of the boat,
but leave the fishermen to design his own boat so far as lines and
profile are concern.
Donald McKay, America’s most famous Clipper ship
builder, built some of the most famous clipper ships ever seen on the
waters of any ocean. Two of those were the Sovereign of the Sea and the
Flying Cloud and when he wanted to change the design of those ships or
improve on them he made voyages on them so that he could watch their
movements through the water and how they acted in a heavy sea, as well
as other characteristics. When he returned from a voyage on the
Sovereign of the Sea he was asked what he thought of her. He replied
“She is a good ship, but I am confident that I can build a better one,”
and he eventually did just that.
Editors note: The Fisheries College in conjunction
with Canada Manpower is allowing fishermen to build boats of their own
design. For further information, please contract the Fisheries College
in St. John’s.
Decks Awash
Volume 7, No. 2, April 1978
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