Heroes of the North Sea

Trawler fishing in the North Sea.

A fleet of trawlers working in the Dogger Bank area filmed from a moving boat. The sequences show the main operations, including repairing the trawl, shooting the trawl, hauling in by steam winch and gutting and packing the fish. The catch was transferred to a carrier boat by rowing boat, and several scenes show the extremely hazardous operation being carried out.

Keywords

Deep sea fishing; Trawler fishing

Intertitles

Two steam fishing fleets are permanently at work in the North Sea at distances varying form 150 - 300 miles from land...... the fleet shown in these pictures is the 'Gamecock' fleet - alternately commanded by 'Admirals' W. Jackson and C. Dixon. ......The Gamcock fleet consists of about 50 vessels. comprising 42 steam trawlers, six carriers and a hospital ship. Repairing the trawl.Another catch ... the meagre result of trawling all night in a gale. Many limbs are broken and lives lost in this desperately dangerous work. Then the boards that buoy the trawl are dropped overside. The trawl is held in readiness ...... and a steam winch completes the operation. Operating orders are sent from the flagship. A typical catch of fish. Alive and kicking. Gutting. Gulls are keenly interested spectators because they know that they will get the refuse. Packing. Steward. The End.

Background Information

BFI database re Heroes of the North Sea https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6a1ca06f This was a part of a film `Heroes of the North Sea'. `Deep Sea Fisheries' may have been an intertitle. The Fishing Industry. During the 19th and earlier part of the 20th century the North Sea grounds were fished by trawlers working in fleets, each under an admiral who issued orders, by flag by day and by rocket at night, which were obeyed by all vessels making up the fleet. Perhaps the best known of these fleets was the Short Blue, which worked from Gorleston during the second part of the 19th century. The smacks making up these fleets spent eight weeks at a time at sea, disengaging from the fleet at the end of every eight week period to return to port to refit and revictual. The crews were thus at sea almost continuously and ashore for only a day or two each two months, so that some men spoke of going home when they returned to the Dogger Bank. The catches were sent daily to Billingsgate or to some other market by carrier, the fish being boarded by small boat as seen in this film, shot this century after the smacks had been replaced by steam trawlers which still worked on the fleeting system.The Gamecock Fleet seen in this film was operated from Hull by the Kelsall Brothers and Beeching Ltd., the vessels all having a cockerel which featured in the firm's house flag emblazoned on the funnel. It was the Gamecock Fleet which was fired on by the Russia Baltic Fleet in the Dogger Bank incident of 1903; the East Coast fishermen regarded the annihilation of the Russian Fleet by the Japanese under Admiral Togo at Tsushima as due retribution for this act, and a Lowestoft vessel was named Togo in the Japanese Admiral's honour. Formed about 1894, the Gamecock Fleet was said to have fished in the North Sea for the next 17 years without intermission, and it certainly went on fishing for considerably longer. (R. Malster. See J. Hart, A Way of Life in East Coast Mariner (19th edition), Norwich Nautical Society, 1971.)