Fishing History
Scottish fishing boats of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were generally small sail boats with open hulls that mainly fished close to shore. The shallow design of the boats allowed them to be launched by their crew from beaches or small harbours, but their open hull provided little shelter for the crew and made them susceptible to swamping and capsizeing in rough seas.
Dutch fishermen had been fishing for herring in the North Sea from the 15th century, and had developed a large scale system of "Buss" fishing in deeper waters using large boats which stayed at sea for several weeks and cured the fish aboard the vessels. To compete with this method, the Government of the day introduced a bounty system which initially rewarded fishermen for using larger vessels, but later paid the bounty based on the size of catch. This led to a gradual increase in the size of fishing vessel operating from the East Coast harbours, although open hulls were still favoured because this allowed the maximum possible catch to be accommodated.
Read more about this topic: Moray Firth Fishing Disaster
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