In 1977, the late Donegal fisherman Eddie ‘Beag’ Gillespie towed his boat Cara na Mara ashore because she needed two planks replaced. Forty-three years later, she is still on Magheraclogher beach near Bunbeg – and the community is raising the…
As the 2020 North Sea seasonal herring fishing gathers momentum, David Linkie looks back 13 years to a trip on the new Fraserburgh midwater trawler Chris Andra FR 228 With the 2007 summer herring season drawing to a close, Chris…
The 11th article in the series by Hull skipper William Oliver, first published in 1953/54. Photographs courtesy of Alec Gill As well as new ships becoming larger and having a greater carrying capacity, a still newer departure was made in…
The tenth article in the series by Hull skipper William Oliver, first published in 1953/54. Photographs courtesy of Alec Gill Two months before our problems with poor-quality coal in 1926, I had been speaking to Mr McCann – the boss…
David Linkie looks back 23 years to a five-day trip on the Fraserburgh twin-rig prawn trawler Opportune BF 19 Eight hours after throwing off the ropes, on the ‘back o’ Sunday night’ at the Broch, Opportune settled her gear in…
In this occasional series, David Linkie looks back on fishing trips, some of them in fisheries now sadly consigned to history, that he has experienced over the past 30-plus years For generations of inshore fishermen, launching and hauling out boats…
Great Yarmouth was a centre of the herring boom. Now it’s more gas and wind. John Worrall reports In normal times, Great Yarmouth is a visitor town. Wide sandy beaches, lots of fast food and the seafront Golden Mile make for family…
The ninth article in the series by Hull skipper William Oliver, first published in 1953/54. All photographs courtesy of Alec Gill After returning to civilian life after the war, I left St Andrew’s Dock as a skipper once again on…
The Lincolnshire town’s fortunes have gone up and down – like its fishing. John Worrall reports The Lincolnshire port of Boston goes back a long way. Boston first got rich in medieval times through the Hanseatic League, whose success was substantially based…
In the days before lifeboat services, saving lives at sea went hand in hand with the chance to make serious money from salvage, reports John Worrall It was a question of time and place. In the 18th and 19th centuries,…