[ANON POST] Historical fishing boats and crossing the English Channel

[kutsuwamushi]

Here's the situation: I am trying to get my characters from Dover, Kent (of white cliffs fame) across the English Channel to France. Setting is late 19th century, but for various reasons, the ferries/mail packets are not an option. My working assumption is that they can find a fisherman with a boat that can make the crossing if they offer him

Comments

[world_dancer]

This is what came up for me on google. Sounds like it was really common.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smack_%28ship%29

http://www.bridgemanart.com/asset/25391/Beverly-William-Roxby-1811-99/Fishing-Boats-at-Anchor:-Sunset-19th-century-wat?search_context={%22url%22%3A%22\%2Fsearch\%2Fartist\%2FBeverly-William-Roxby-1811-99\%2F4118%3Flang%3Den-US%22%2C%22num_results%22%3A%2211%22%2C%22search_type%22%3A%22creator_assets%22%2C%22creator_id%22%3A%224118%22%2C%22item_index%22%3A2}

[world_dancer]

That's definitely one of the boats that came up in my searches, as well. Thanks!

[penguineggs]

The herring fleet were concentrated on the East Coast, the Moray Firth and further North so your instincts to avoid the herring fleet may well be sound (the herring's a deep water fish and the Dover Straits are very shallow), though in terms of living history about fishing in general at the era you can't do better than Singing the Fishing , a radio ballad broadcast in 1960 including the recollections of fishermen from the very era you're talking about.

A boat which fishes for flatfish (the Dover Sole is justly prized) would be more the ticket if you want to stay with a fishing boat, and the Deal Lugger (Deal is just round the corner from Dover) seems to fit that particular bill.

But if you want an alternative to a fishing boat, I think what you may be after is a Thames Barge (which did from time to time go foreign across to Northern France, Holland and Belgium and which were superbly adapted for those waters. They were designed to be sailed by a man and a boy (from time to time, by a married couple) and were about 80 feet long

[penguineggs]

That radio broadcast is a fantastic resource, thank you! And I will definitely look into both of those ships. It's kind of a last minute thing - and in the middle of the night, to boot - so I think the barge may be out. Which is unfortunate, because I am intrigued by the idea of a two person crew.

Thanks for the tip about size. I have gathered that the crossing can be made by far smaller ships than I might expect; it's mostly just that I'm not sure exactly HOW small. Good to know that you did it on a 26-footer. Do you mind my asking how many people were on the ship with you?

[penguineggs]

Going across the Channel on that boat I've usually had two or three companions, but I took the same boat from Portpatrick to Islay (a distance of about 80 miles) with only one other person on board.

[penguineggs]

Do you think the Channel crossing would be possible with just two people? It's 21 miles at its narrowest point if I remember right, but possibly there are weather/current/other considerations?

[stormwreath]

This page has dozens of old photographs of Folkestone harbour from 1880 to the present, and gives a very good idea of the kind of boats fishermen were using

[stormwreath]

All of those old photos are absolutely wonderful! Thank you so much.

It's not important what kind of a boat they ultimately end up on. The real issue is that it's the middle of the night, they need to get to France ASAP, and the next ferry is not leaving until the morning. I thought that, since they are in a port (albeit a commercial one rather than a fishing one, as you pointed out), there must be SOMEBODY with a boat that they can convince to take them across if they throw enough money at him.

Fishing lugger is officially going on the research list. Do you think a smaller boat with only two or three people as crew could make the crossing, or would you have to be crazy to try? (Presumably the hypothetical fisherman is not going to want to endanger his livelihood no matter how much they pay him, after all.)

[dorsetgirl]

Do you think a smaller boat with only two or three people as crew could make the crossing, or would you have to be crazy to try?

it's only twenty-odd miles, and at that time they didn't have to worry about crossing endless streams of container ships with Liberian flags of convenience failing to keep adequate watch. I'm not an expert but I really don't think a competent fisherman is going to worry about crossing the channel as long as he's got enough people to work the ship, which I think is pretty much 2-3 people anyway for a fishing boat (the others are there to haul nets etc). You basically need one to steer, one to run around getting sails up and down and one spare.

Your fisherman knows the tides, he knows the waters in all weathers, and I reckon he knows half a dozen ports on the other side if only by repute.

[stormwreath]

Thanks! That's sort of what I figured, but the whole never-saw-the-ocean-till-a-teenager thing makes me doubt my instincts when it comes to boats and sailing.

[jayb111]

Fishing was actually a sideline for many of the men on this stretch of coastline. Salvage work and other (dis)services to shipping were the main source of income though very much in decline by late 19th century. The lugger, as already said, and the galley punt, a smaller boat, were the two principal types. Typically they were owned by groups of men (and sometimes women) in shares, rather than by a single owner. Not the Thames Barge; I don't know that I've ever come across a reference to one on this stretch of coastline. Fishing smacks/trawlers which went into the North Sea would be found at Ramsgate

[jayb111]

Yeah, I considered smuggling for a little while before discovering that it was a bit too anachronistic. If the story was set 70 or 80 years earlier, I would have been on that possibility like white on rice. :)

I would love any information you'd care to give me - should I just send a message to your account?

[jayb111]

Yes, message me through my account. Do you have a precise date for the story?

[penguineggs]

I see the OP doesn't think the Thames Barge is suitable, but it's interesting the spread of Thames Barges along the Kent coast, not just Rochester, as you'd expect, but Ramsgate, Deal and Sandwich. The Savoy, interestingly, is registered out of Dover and has a Dover-based owner.

[ffutures]

The most obvious factors here are time of year and weather. The channel on a calm summer's night is VERY different from the middle of a winter storm.

Someone else mentioned sailing barges; there were regular shipments carrying things that needed to be transported quickly and with minimum handling, e.g. fragile China and glass, it might be relatively easy to get a ride, but again this is going to be VERY dependent on weather, tides, etc., with the wrong tides or the wind blowing the wrong way all bets are off.

[penguineggs]

Agreed but I'd rather do it in a howling force eight than in fog.

[ffutures]

It's winter, though not storming (though if I wanted to make life even more difficult for my characters than it currently is, I suppose I could write in a storm!). How easy do you think it would be to get a ride at odd hours in the middle of the night?

[ffutures]

You look at the literature of the period and people seemed to have little trouble doing it, but how accurate that is would be anyone's guess. I'm no expert.