Originally Posted by
Ivan Cloherty
Thanks for that John, different to my day in the early 50's, I was amused by the amount of meat going on board and the size of the galley, we only had meat for 4-5 days and after reaching the fishing grounds off Bear Island, it was, fish, fish, fish and more fish for the next 3 weeks. Weather shown off Iceland was more akin to a pleasure cruise rather than the weather normally experienced. They all looked nice and clean, but then again they had showers and not a bucket on the galley stove, or a bleed off from the steam generator, and that was only allowed on the last two days homeward bound, of course they had no coal shovelling to do. The float balls looked fairly light compared to the 50's were the balls were heavy duty steel and could crush a man with one roll. Pity the camera crew didn't go in winter and that would have shown them the reality and dangers of fishing in savage freezing waters and chopping ice off the rigging, otherwise standing knee deep in fish, gutting, taking out the livers and throwing the guts overboard and the gutted fish into the water pounds, before going down the chute to be set in trays of ice was similar. That's another job they don't do now, as they have ice machines aboard, where as we had to go down the holds 24 hours before arrival at the fishing grounds to start chopping the 20 tons of ice that had solidified with the pounding of the vessel in a seaway and the vibration from the engines. Enjoyable at the time, but not a lifetime career, but great experiences of camaraderie and looking out for each other. The later oiled fueled trawlers I sailed on were a joy with no coal to shovel, but still basic, crew comfort was not a priority in the industry.
