Hornsea fisherman driven out by beach erosion

Growing safety concerns for beach-launched fleet

A fisherman who has been working out of Hornsea for more than four decades has called time on his career early due to concerns including unsafe launching and landing conditions.

Alan Stead, who started fishing in the early 1980s, said the poor condition of the beach and its slipway were major factors in him deciding to come ashore.

The beach-launched fleet uses tractors to run down a slipway and across the sand. However, over the past three years the beach has seen widespread depletion of the sand – which local fishermen say is putting both safety and livelihoods in danger (FN, 16 May, 2024, ‘Beach-launched fleet threatened by loss of sand’).

“I made my mind up around August that I’d had enough,” Alan Stead told Fishing News. “It’s become too hard to make a living. I couldn’t fish where I used to fish, couldn’t get the days at sea – and the state of the ramp and the beach is an absolute joke. I was hoping to slowly wind down and get a couple of years off it – but it was so bad it became unfeasible.”

Alan, who sold his vessel Karmalor H 1123 late last year, said the beach is now unrecognisable from when he first started working out of Hornsea.

“When the sand used to be on the beach, you could launch any time. If you wanted to go at 5am in the morning, you could go down there and get away. You never had to worry about the state of the beach.

Karmalor H 1123 pictured on the sandy beach at Hornsea in March 2012. (Photo: Peter Barr)

“From the top of the wall down to the bottom of the sand is now around 12ft to 14ft. Once upon a time, you could step off that wall onto the sand – a foot below. That sand was a third of the way down the beach. Now it’s just like the moon – there’s rocks, boulders – and no sand.”

This is causing access issues with the slipway, with safe launching and landing heavily restricted.

“It’s a safety issue. If something happens, and you’re unable to get ashore for X number of hours, then it becomes an issue,” Alan Stead told FN. “We nearly lost the boat on the beach just before Christmas. We waited and waited to come in. The process is to reverse the boat back into the water and then line up with the ramp – you can’t get up the sides of the slipway because they’re too steep.

“We hit the beach and got the boat on the trailer. There was a little bit of lift, and it rocked the boat on the trailer to one side. We could barely go forwards or backwards. My crewman had to back the boat into the water to get it off the trailer. Luckily, we didn’t do any damage – but it was so, so close.”

Alan told FN that he expects another two or three fisherman in the Hornsea fleet to come ashore permanently within the next couple of years. He believes the installation of wind turbines or nearby dredging – and not natural erosion – could be factors in the depletion of sand.

The current condition of the beach and slipway at Hornsea. Fisherman Andy Faichney told FN: “The vessels are in danger, crew are in danger and people’s livelihoods are in danger – and nobody wants to address the situation.”

Andy Faichney, owner of Ferriby III H 6, echoed these concerns, and told FN that the issues were also impacting crewing. “Five, six years ago, we didn’t really have to worry about what time we launched or came in. Now, we’ve got to try and look for somewhere on the beach with a bit of sand on it, not just stones and pebbles, because we have to work out where we can bring the boat in safely without smashing holes in it,” he said.

“You’re talking 14-hour days to be able to launch and come back in at the right sort of time. The last day before Christmas, the boat had to sit there for four hours at sea with nothing to do.

“The crew had got round the gear in a day, but after the final haul they had to sit at sea before they could actually get back onto the beach. That doesn’t take long to annoy crewmen – regardless of how much you’re earning. If you’re sat in a cold boat for four hours, it’s not ideal.”

In 2023, East Riding of Yorkshire Council carried out remedial work to improve the slipway. A spokesperson for the council told BBC Look North that it was aware of further problems caused by low beach levels – but that currently, funds aren’t available for a long-term solution.

For Alan Stead, who also voiced concerns over the management of the fishery, the issues have brought a premature end to a long career.

“I loved going to sea – that’s all I lived for. Now, I won’t miss it one bit – it was just too much in the end. It was problem after problem. I’m glad to be out.”

This story was taken from the latest issue of Fishing News. For more up-to-date and in-depth reports on the UK and Irish commercial fishing sector, subscribe to Fishing News here or buy the latest single issue for just £3.50 here.

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