B A C K T H E N
Fishing Boats – Boston
Photo J. Jay Hirz active 1930s
This photograph dates from the 1930s and shows part of the fishing fleet in Boston Harbor. Little boats have traditionally been powered by wind or muscle, and even the advent of steam engines didn’t change this much, as these new machines were expensive and complex to install and run. While the new power could be justified for a small vessel like the harbor tug, where the loads to be moved were so valuable, it was impractical for small fishing craft, which so often existed on the economic fringe of the marine world. Later, when the cheap and reliable internal combustion engine came along, a new class of fishing craft quickly grew up, often owned and run by a single person or family.
These boats fall into two categories; one uses nets, and the other hooks. Fish are almost always caught in one of these two ways, and both techniques were adapted for offshore use. The rigging needed for nets was complex, and the masts and lines they required are visible on about half the vessels in the picture. On most of these, the nets themselves are hung up to dry, and the small wheelhouses speak of long hours trawling in wet and cold weather. The other boats, which fished with lines, have none of this complexity, but instead each carries a dory on deck and has only a rudimentary house for protection from the elements. The dory could be launched far offshore, and the fisherman could work with a sunken line that carried multiple baited hooks that passively caught the fish. The life of the longliner was tough; tales abound of men who, separated from their boats, rowed back home from the Georges Bank with hands frozen to the oars after days of struggle. Their small dories, with a deep V cross section, are without exception the most seaworthy of boats. They have the remarkable characteristic of being open to the sea, yet so agile that they can survive any weather.
From: A Maritime Album: 100 Photographs and Their Stories. Photo courtesy Newport News Marine Museum. Text courtesy Yale University Press.